Little or no brood

[Simon Mills]

I inspected my four hives and found hive 1 had lots of bees but no brood and very little stores. Hives 2 and 3 had some brood and stores on a couple of frames. Hive 4 had more brood and stores and still has a super on with honey in that was too small a quantity to extract.
Is the lack of brood and minimal stores expected at this time of year especially as we have had poor foraging weather? This month sees completion of a full year with my first hive.

 

[Erichalfbee]

It happens.
If they were my bees I’d put pollen sub on. They need winter bees which are made this month and next.
Also. Get cracking with treating for varroa.

 

[enrico]

I inspected my four hives and found hive 1 had lots of bees but no brood and very little stores. Hives 2 and 3 had some brood and stores on a couple of frames. Hive 4 had more brood and stores and still has a super on with honey in that was too small a quantity to extract.
Is the lack of brood and minimal stores expected at this time of year especially as we have had poor foraging weather? This month sees completion of a full year with my first hive.

If they have no stores brood will diminish. If they are starving then feed them. Extraction is over so feed if they need it.
Think about nadiring the super that is left to get them to move the stores into the brood box

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I inspected my four hives and found hive 1 had lots of bees but no brood and very little stores. Hives 2 and 3 had some brood and stores on a couple of frames. Hive 4 had more brood and stores and still has a super on with honey in that was too small a quantity to extract.
Is the lack of brood and minimal stores expected at this time of year especially as we have had poor foraging weather? This month sees completion of a full year with my first hive.

August can be a bad foraging month - I tend to feed colonies gently over the month to encourage laying to ensure a good sized colony going into winter. My girls generally have plenty of pollen at this time of year but bring in little nectar after the blackberry finishes. Loads of pollen and nectar usually comes in when ivy starts.

 

[OH honey]

Been a bit edgy over last 4 weeks as no stores in BB but plenty of bees and BIAS. Supers looking poor since extracting spring harvest in June. However over last week or so the fine weather has encouraged a spurt from bees and they are starting to fill both BB and supers. The ivy in my garden hasn't flowered and the nearest heather is about 3-4 miles away, so not sure what they are on. I am going to wait a week then take out whatever capped frames I can for final honey extraction, and feed uncapped back to them before treating in mid Sept. assessing wether to combine 2 hives and feeding up through Autumn. Thats the plan

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

you often get a brood break around this time of the year, I gave up worrying about lack of brood at the end of August years ago.

 

[Simon Mills]

If they have no stores brood will diminish. If they are starving then feed them. Extraction is over so feed if they need it.
Think about nadiring the super that is left to get them to move the stores into the brood box

Is there any reason why I shouldn't nadir the super?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Is there any reason why I shouldn't nadir the super?

How is the wasp situation?

 

[enrico]

Is there any reason why I shouldn't nadir the super?

Wasps are the main reason as above

 

[Simon Mills]

My bees are in a mixed woodland, I haven't seen many wasps at all thankfully.

 

[BernardBlack]

Should the forecasted warmer weather help with the current lack of stores?

And if so, how quickly would we see a considerable stores increase?

 

[JamezF]

Should the forecasted warmer weather help with the current lack of stores?

The correct answer is, of course, "it depends". If there's not much useful flowering in your area then probably not. If you're near a source of Himalayan Balsam then it it may well. With other plants that are flowering at the moment it may well depend on soil moisture levels. There hasn't been a lot of rain here recently though it has been really heavily overcast quite often (to the point where the bees aren't flying) and I'm not seeing any bees working the dandelions that are flowering today, for example.

The best you can do is probably to wait for the warmer weather to arrive and then spend a while watching the entrances to see what they're up to. Or assume the weather forecasters are as likely to get it right as they usually seem to and take suitable measures.

James

 

[Simon Mills]

I've got a couple of garden centres within a mile of my apiary, I hope my bees are taking advantage of their flowers. I did pop down to one of them a couple of weeks ago and saw lots of honey bees though I couldn't tell if they were mine
Hopefully a few sunny days will speed up the ivy flowering.

 

[hemo]

An out apiary of mine is well within the range of three garden centres, trust me they will be visiting them. On one of my honey samples it showed up they had visited Pieres formosa & Illex perado both non native plants , the latter from the Azores/Canaries and the former Nepal. Though also it is likely these plants are also located in the surrounding gardens as well.

 

[madasafish]

I am treating - Apiguard -and Qs stopped laying when I treated three weeks ago. As usual. I don't worry as long as hives are strong. Weak hives? Unite as I have just done yesterday. Waste of time taking weak hives (in my view under 9 frames full of bees in B Box.)

 

[Beth]

you often get a brood break around this time of the year, I gave up worrying about lack of brood at the end of August years ago.

I certainly hope that's what is happening here. 5 hives and nearly no brood . A few have a bit of larvae and capped, but not an egg to be seen (thru fogged up glasses thanks to the heat). One has drones just hatching and nothing else in the pipeline. Most have plenty stores in the half brood upstairs, and 3 have supers on still. I did a bit of sharing out of a few frames from a reserve supply to even things up.
They all seem strangely happy and good tempered. I didn't go fishing around for queens.

I am tempted to open the CB's in a couple of weeks, remove all extra supers and start feeding back surplus frames to get them to backfill the BB.