Help with a problem

[ian wallace]

Hi guys i am coming up to my first year of beekeeping and i have a question i hope that you guys can help me with

im having problems with the first hive i bought last may.

i am using a brood and a half system
the lower brood has loads of stores and pollen and brood of all stages
and the upper brood (supper frames) have equel amounts of brood and stores also.

in march i carried out a full inspection and replaced two old frames and treated for varroa.

i noticed that the temperment of the bees were very high and the guard bees were following me around like mad, (they were not like this last year)

ten days after i found two queen cells in the hive so i made a split into another hive. (this is doing very well)

the next inspection there were three or more queen cells in the hive and the temperment of the bees were high again.

because i dont know the age of the queen, im guessing this might be her seconed year at the earlyest,if not third year i dont know if they are looking to replace her, and that maybe the reason why they are bad tempered?

but all the queen cells were at the bottom of the supper frames, and none were in the middle of the frames.

so what do you think would be the best thing to do next.?

shall i requeen, or let them swarm, or keep on taking the queen cells down? or make another split,

also this hive does not seam to be very productive, my other hive that i made a split from last year they are on there third supper and this hive has not touched there first???

 

[VEG]

Make another split that way you will get another colony.

 

[ian wallace]

Hi craig, you would not kill the queen and make them make a new one then?

 

[VEG]

Depend if you want more stocks or not. You could split let them build up then kill off old queen and combine (if you didn't want increase).

 

[ian wallace]

im all for incressing my hives, but i have split this hive once last week, didnt know if it was ok to split again?

 

[VEG]

Supercedure cells "tend" to be in the middle of frames and swarm cells I have found all over. If there are enough bees/stores to support another split then go for it if you dont they will likely swarm and you will have lost out anyway.

 

[MuswellMetro]

where are you, uk is a big place, in early april in london it was 20c and in lerwick 8c, so advice given would depend on were you live, please amended your profile to say the nearest town or at least county


1) what was the varroa treatemnet you used in March, some treatent stop the queen laying, is it still on the hive?

2) by split, please explain ,did you just remove a frame or two to a new hive or did you split by artificial swarm method. (a simple split by removing a couple of frames does not stop their swarm instinct)

3) have you seen the queen, have you still eggs and young brood, and how large is the hive ie how many frames have sealed brood, how much stores, how many supers on and their honey content/foundation etc

 

[ian wallace]

ok, sounds like an idea to split again then, i can give them more stores from another hive if they get short i guess,

 

[ian wallace]

I live in wiltshire (burbage)
for the treatment i used iceing sugger, as i dont like the idea of using chemicals in the hive,

i removed five frames from one hive to a new hive and left the queen in the origanal hive and she is marked

i have a brood and a half with loads of brood stores and one supper with honey

 

[susbees]

I live in wiltshire (burbage)
for the treatment i used iceing sugger, as i dont like the idea of using chemicals in the hive,

I can understand this...but think you need to cull some drone brood too early in the season (first capped pulls in the mites big time). Have you any idea of your hive varroa loading?

 

[itchyhives]

I would say you haven't fooled the bees into thinking they've swarmed, just given them more space and less bees. I would leave the queen and single frame on original site and move the rest, if you didn't want the increse reunite later to increase your honey yield....just my thoughts.

 

[MuswellMetro]

i am not a fan of icing sugar as a treatment unless it is done as a yearly with a full shook swarm then by rolling them all in icing sugar before they have brood, excess icing sugar anyway can kill open brood and reduce the biuld up in a hive

i suspect the the original hive is slow as it has a high varroa load but you new split has a lower varroa load on splittings, expect deformed wing virus to show soon

a simple split does not stop swarming, it just delays it, you need to do a do a full artificial swarm and rotate the QC hive around the Q+ hive, or a demarre and rotate the brood

if you just split of QC as you have done in spring weather like we had had recently then you can end up with qc until late June and no honey

 

[susbees]

excess icing sugar anyway can kill open brood and reduce the biuld up in a hive

Can you point me to the literature? Dusting goes on the bees vertically down the seams and they groom it off. This is a "light control" but as part of overall IPM is useful....we have high drone brood count in our hives and do cull drone brood too (and use thymol strings and September homemade Apistan).

I found the following in an article on icing sugar and mites (US: powdered sugar): "There are a few misinformed people who may claim that powdered sugar will kill open brood. This false impression is left from the days when Terramycin® was mixed with powdered sugar and sprinkled liberally in hives in attempts to "prevent" AFB where none had been detected. What killed the open brood was the Terramycin®, not the sugar." There are other references to OTC mixed with icing sugar elsewhere, amounting to the same thing.

 

[oliver90owner]

i have split this hive once last week, didnt know if it was ok to split again?

You do what the bees require, not count manipulations.

An A/S (mentioned above?) would be a good idea. Done properly it is likely to remove the swarming instinct for the rest of the season. A simple split is not an A/S.

There could be any of one or more reasons why the temperament has changed - a new queen is one of those possibilities.

Re your varroa treatment - if you simply 'sugar dusted' the colony once in March, you were just wasting your time, effort and icing sugar (dosh).

If they actually needed it, then they will be getting riddled with varroa in the very near future, if not already.

I don't know what your level of experience/knowledge is, but studying a good beekeeping book or three would describe/explain these potential problems in some detail or have at least a basic discussion of them.

RAB

 

[Tom Bick]

Hi guys i am coming up to my first year of beekeeping and i have a question i hope that you guys can help me with

im having problems with the first hive i bought last may.

i am using a brood and a half system
the lower brood has loads of stores and pollen and brood of all stages
and the upper brood (supper frames) have equel amounts of brood and stores also.

in march i carried out a full inspection and replaced two old frames and treated for varroa.

i noticed that the temperment of the bees were very high and the guard bees were following me around like mad, (they were not like this last year)

ten days after i found two queen cells in the hive so i made a split into another hive. (this is doing very well)

the next inspection there were three or more queen cells in the hive and the temperment of the bees were high again.

because i dont know the age of the queen, im guessing this might be her seconed year at the earlyest,if not third year i dont know if they are looking to replace her, and that maybe the reason why they are bad tempered?

but all the queen cells were at the bottom of the supper frames, and none were in the middle of the frames.

so what do you think would be the best thing to do next.?

shall i requeen, or let them swarm, or keep on taking the queen cells down? or make another split,

also this hive does not seam to be very productive, my other hive that i made a split from last year they are on there third supper and this hive has not touched there first???

Having read this thread Ian and it reads to me that you are splitting this colony with nucs with queen cells but you refer to it as a slightly temperamental colony and the virgin queens produced from the splits may just continue as slightly temperamental or even worse temperament.

You will have to watch the nucs when the queens start to lay

 

[MuswellMetro]

Can you point me to the literature? Dusting goes on the bees vertically down the seams and they groom it off. This is a "light control" but as part of overall IPM is useful.

read my post, i did say excess, i have seen so much icing sugar used ( and on USA videos) that cuases white bees

such level according to current reaseach can cause a 20% reduction in emerging brood

 

[MuswellMetro]

standard seam dusting with icing sugar will also set you back about two days of egg production according to the 2005 IBRA research as upto 62% of eggs can be removed


"The low dose (0.3 g per 152 cells) is closer to the actual amount
of powdered sugar that could enter brood cells when applying
antibiotic dusts or powdered sugar to hives without removing
individual frames and applying the material directly to the brood.
The low dose did not harm 5- or 8-day-old larvae but resulted
in 62% egg removal. Our results indicate that doses less than or
equal to 0.3 g per 152 brood cells will not harm larvae but may
result in some egg removal"

 

[Tom Bick]

As I understand it it’s the Anti Caking Additive added to the icing sugar that can be harmful to the bees.

This is one of them - Tricalcium Phosphate (E341) and another Sodium Aluminum Silicate E554

I have mentioned this a number of times and the icing sugar brigade never dispute it or say the additives are safe to bees.

I know from the internet in the US it seems that you can get Icing Sugar without the Anti Caking Agent Added but in the UK who knows.

So a question to the dusting icing devotees can you point me in the direction of icing sugar without additives as I would like to do it but not with the E numbers.

 

[oliver90owner]

Thanks for that MM.

More data to demonstrate that sugar dusting is basically a waste of time, effort and materials.

I would certainly not consider doing it.

Regards, RAB

 

[Erichalfbee]

Is sugar dusting different from sugar rolling? If so how,please.