What to do next.

In spot of bother again and this is the condition hives are in now so want to know, whats my next moves to get them back on track.

Havent took notes! i know silly of me again but going to get a recording device then will write notes after.


Hive 1(nuc) This nuc has a marked queen on 1 frame of brood and is laying. This is the original queen from my kamikaze AS(moved queen in nuc to new location rather than keep her in same location with new brood box). I fed with small nuc feeder 1;1 but dont know if its ok to keep feeding because afraid of the bees storing feed in cells where queen can lay.

Hive 2. (from over wintered caste) Queen laying again after being put in queen cage after bees tried to ball her after i marked her with pen. Capped brood, larvae and Some stores but not much stores if i remember correctly. Thinking of feeding.

Hive 3. Was doing great untill a few weeks ago. This is the hive i did my fecked up AS from. Still lots of bees, Queen cells(forget how much) Still has some brood, stores?(has super but didnt go through it)

Hive 4. Few opened QCs, capped QCs and dont know if theres any virgin Qs or theyve done a runner with some bees. Few scattered pollen or nectar in cells thou sh1t loads of empty cells throughout hive. Still has good amount of bees but would say theres been a swarm or caste from it because it aint as full as hive 3. Both were building up together at nearly same rate.

Weather is really bad here today and mightnet be able to enter hives untill 5-6ish after work in the coming days. Today was ideal because of bank hokaday but weather pissing down, very windy and its under 10 degrees. Have 2 other brood boxes with frames for splits and could maybe buy another 2 empty brood boxes if needed for more splits.

Hive1 and 2 sound ok (ish)
Hive 3 , depends when you did AS and why you have left so many queen cells
Hive 4 needs an AS and queen cells culling to one or two

.
Difficult to say with that deskription what is going on there.

Hive 1 only one frame if brood. That is minimum before zero. Why so little brood?

Capped Queen cells. When tip of cell is dark, Queen is near to emerging. If tip has a tiny hole, there is ready Queen inside and swarm is ready to departure.

.
Two Queen cells in swarming hive. It can swarm.

jenkinsbrynmair said:

https://www.bhpa.co.uk/

Click to expand...

Isn't this spam mail or your next venture in border control JBM.

Nuc 1
Sounds like you only have the frame the queen was on and the nurse bees that were on the frame when you put it into nuc(all flying bees went back to hive 3)
what is rest of nuc made up of foundation or drawn combs?

Hive 2
How many frames of bees in this hive

Hive 3
contains the flying bees and the newly emerged brood since the AS and are attempting to raise new queen
Think you would need to reduce number of Q cells to 2 close together

Hive 4
Would think you have lost a swarm alright
Again reduce QCells to 1/2open cells

Use your spare brood boxes for bait hives

Anduril said:

Isn't this spam mail or your next venture in border control JBM.

Click to expand...

It's winging it........

Irishguy, you really need to find, join and get involved with a local association (of beekeepers, for preference). It'll give you someone who can have a good look at what's going on. It's so much easier to advise that way.

thorn said:

Irishguy, you really need to find, join and get involved with a local association (of beekeepers, for preference). It'll give you someone who can have a good look at what's going on. It's so much easier to advise that way.

Click to expand...

Trouble is, the root cause of most of his problems seem to be advice from local 'experts' allegedly

jenkinsbrynmair said:

Trouble is, the root cause of most of his problems seem to be advice from local 'experts' allegedly

Click to expand...

And the rest from an inability to give a clear and full explanation of what the situation is in the hives.

and from getting three different answers to every question

wessexmario said:

and from getting three different answers to every question

Click to expand...

And the question was? No idea, what kind of hives are. It does manage this way.

suggest you go thou all hives this time check each frame and write it down ,standing at the back of hive left frame being no 1 next no2 and so on, you will have a full picture of what's happening to each hive then put that on the inside of each roof so next time you can ring the changes to each hive and read up on what should be happening and at what time hope that helps

How about letting us know what you think you should do so that we can expand on your diagnosis and treatment

OR ..... Just leave them all alone!

The bees know best and will sort themselves out.
I bet there would be happy colonies in all the hives at the end of the season if left alone.

Fraise said:

OR ..... Just leave them all alone!

The bees know best and will sort themselves out.
I bet there would be happy colonies in all the hives at the end of the season if left alone.

Click to expand...

Well I'm not a betting man but if I was, I'd bet your full of keeky boo because I left one of the hives alone with 1 capped QC as suggested on here but now they've probably thrown a caste or 2 and now there's more capped QCs.

What I've learned in my short bee keeping madness is that if you do one thing, there'll be 10 other beeks saying you should have done this or that! At first it used to annoy me but now I don't give a flying feck what others think, all I can do is do what I do and if I balls everything up, sure I can look back and have a laugh at how much of a simple fcuker I was at that time. And yes, ill have plenty of laughs if going by my beekeeping adventure has been like so far lol. Anyway, if your up for a few LOL's yourself, sure stick around this thread for the foreseeable future and maybe you'll get plenty.

jenkinsbrynmair said:

https://www.bhpa.co.uk/

Click to expand...

I take it its that time of year again lol.

Tonyatcwfarm said:

Nuc 1
Sounds like you only have the frame the queen was on and the nurse bees that were on the frame when you put it into nuc(all flying bees went back to hive 3)
what is rest of nuc made up of foundation or drawn combs?

If you've read my other thread on how I done this so called AS(I'm sure you had a wee sneaky peek and said nothing because there's well over 100 views and not one reply . This NuC has one frame of brood, 1 frame of stores and rest of comb and foundation


Hive 2
How many frames of bees in this hive

75% thou working on rest when I lift rest of frames up. Will get pics next time I open it up.

Hive 3
contains the flying bees and the newly emerged brood since the AS and are attempting to raise new queen
Think you would need to reduce number of Q cells to 2 close together



Hive 4
Would think you have lost a swarm alright
Again reduce QCells to 1/2open cells

I did this and they managed to start making more .


Use your spare brood boxes for bait hives

Click to expand...

Can the bait hives be left close beside other hives ?

Erichalfbee said:

How about letting us know what you think you should do so that we can expand on your diagnosis and treatment

Click to expand...

Unite 2 and 4 after knocking down all QCs. Add some drawn comb into hive 1 and finally in hive 3 knock all but 1 QC and go back 7 days to see what the craic is.