Beecarer
House Bee
This observation began last summer when I made up a Nuc (Paynes Poly) from a swarming hive, all went to plan with the Nuc the queen cell hatched out got mated and began laying, on an inspection I noticed other bees were helping her to back into the cell in order to lay an egg and she kept falling off the frame down to the mesh floor of the Nuc, I wasn’t sure what was happening so left them alone, I returned about 5 days later for another look and she was gone, she had laid a brood pattern the size of a tennis ball of which they had developed two into emergency queen cells from the now matured larva out of curiosity I left them be, the emergency cells looked a small bit more pronounced than that of a drone cell when capped.
This emergency cell hatched out and produced a new laying queen, they overwintered on two frames of bees and by spring they were down to one frame you couldn’t make out if anything was alive in there as really there were so few bees, once the spring build up came it expanded out to the six frames with a fondant feed pretty quickly, I then decided to give them a full brood chamber and expand it frame by frame with a dummy board and insulation in the void, all I had was a wooden Ceader hive, gave them a frame of foundation and some feed and nothing was happening other than they were now very bad tempered and low in activity compared to before in the poly nuc.
I went and got a new Paynes poly hive for them and was really astounded with the differences between before and after.
Before in Wooden Hive
• Not many bees visible when looking under the hive through the OMF
• Bad tempered
• Not drawing out wax on the new foundation
• Low activity at the hive entrance
After rehousing to the Paynes Poly Hive
• Large cluster now visible when looking under the hive through the OMF
• Very good temper not fussed with me being near them whatsoever
• Drawing out full frames on the new foundation
• Hive entrance buzzing with activity
Just found the whole thing interesting, how a colony can be down to a few eggs / larva and yet come back against all the odds and be laying full frames of brood, it might never amount to being a massive honey producing hive, time will tell but for certain in the well-insulated poly the bees are doing far better, they don’t need to be using up as much energy in a wooden hive to maintain the correct hive temperature so instead it allows the bees to expand building new wax and go out foraging.
The weather was pretty much the same over the few weeks while in both the wooden and the poly hives so it is just down to the better insulation of the poly hive.
.
This emergency cell hatched out and produced a new laying queen, they overwintered on two frames of bees and by spring they were down to one frame you couldn’t make out if anything was alive in there as really there were so few bees, once the spring build up came it expanded out to the six frames with a fondant feed pretty quickly, I then decided to give them a full brood chamber and expand it frame by frame with a dummy board and insulation in the void, all I had was a wooden Ceader hive, gave them a frame of foundation and some feed and nothing was happening other than they were now very bad tempered and low in activity compared to before in the poly nuc.
I went and got a new Paynes poly hive for them and was really astounded with the differences between before and after.
Before in Wooden Hive
• Not many bees visible when looking under the hive through the OMF
• Bad tempered
• Not drawing out wax on the new foundation
• Low activity at the hive entrance
After rehousing to the Paynes Poly Hive
• Large cluster now visible when looking under the hive through the OMF
• Very good temper not fussed with me being near them whatsoever
• Drawing out full frames on the new foundation
• Hive entrance buzzing with activity
Just found the whole thing interesting, how a colony can be down to a few eggs / larva and yet come back against all the odds and be laying full frames of brood, it might never amount to being a massive honey producing hive, time will tell but for certain in the well-insulated poly the bees are doing far better, they don’t need to be using up as much energy in a wooden hive to maintain the correct hive temperature so instead it allows the bees to expand building new wax and go out foraging.
The weather was pretty much the same over the few weeks while in both the wooden and the poly hives so it is just down to the better insulation of the poly hive.
.
