- Joined
- Jan 16, 2013
- Messages
- 151
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Cumbria
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 1
Trying to save 2 hives that are both well populated (mostly pensioners I guess) they were found half full of drone brood, not that many hatched out Drones though.
The brood pattern in hive A was pretty uniform and had a very small amount of random capped worker brood, but no eggs so my guess is DLQ gone AWOL. Hive B definitely had eggs in patches so taken as laying worker.
So last week I sieved each colony through a queen excluder. No sign of a queen in either. Hive A was sieved into a brood box with some capped stores and no brood. Hive B was sieved into a super with some capped stores.
A queen was ordered last week and is due tomorrow.
On Saturday I checked through both colonies and there is no sign of eggs. They are working through the stores nicely. Same again today, no eggs.
Today I added a frame of eggs and brood to hive A and will add in the Q tomorrow in her cage adjacent to this. I am expecting queen cells but can knock these down in a few days when I pull the plug on the queen cage.
Second stage of the plan is to unite using newspaper Hive B which is in the super. Is this a good idea or should I feel pleased if getting Hive A back on track?
Any other pointers, ideas, (reasoned) criticism is most welcome!
The brood pattern in hive A was pretty uniform and had a very small amount of random capped worker brood, but no eggs so my guess is DLQ gone AWOL. Hive B definitely had eggs in patches so taken as laying worker.
So last week I sieved each colony through a queen excluder. No sign of a queen in either. Hive A was sieved into a brood box with some capped stores and no brood. Hive B was sieved into a super with some capped stores.
A queen was ordered last week and is due tomorrow.
On Saturday I checked through both colonies and there is no sign of eggs. They are working through the stores nicely. Same again today, no eggs.
Today I added a frame of eggs and brood to hive A and will add in the Q tomorrow in her cage adjacent to this. I am expecting queen cells but can knock these down in a few days when I pull the plug on the queen cage.
Second stage of the plan is to unite using newspaper Hive B which is in the super. Is this a good idea or should I feel pleased if getting Hive A back on track?
Any other pointers, ideas, (reasoned) criticism is most welcome!