Quick questions quick answers

[Ian123]

How many boxes had brood in, start in those!

 

[Antipodes]

Yes.....four boxes of brood and the boxes are ideals so 32 frames. There are often frames which seem to have bees on top of other bees ...perhaps three deep, but I'm wondering, would they normally not cover the queen and give her a wider berth?

 

[drex]

It's quite hard to find a queen ....it was full on yesterday. Any hints please? We use ideals here which are sort of half deep Langs so I had 4 boxes of them to go through....32 frames.

Suggest you split up the brood boxes. After a few minutes the boxes which do not have a queen will become agitated. Look in the calmest box.

 

[Antipodes]

Thanks Drex,

I'll try that today on a couple of colonies and see how I go. They are all pretty agitated at the moment unfortunately but hopefully that will work.

 

[Antipodes]

I just had another question. Yesterday I did the excluder sieve method under the bottom box to find a queen in a hive (hive No. 1), and got her and removed her as I am re-queening. .. (I know it's not the preferred method)..anyhow, I then tried the same method on an adjacent hive (Hive No.2), ..a more aggressive colony, and I lost partial control of the situation, (the white sheet fell away for a start). Bees then formed clumps in various places and some crawled up and clumped under the entrance of the freshly queenless adjacent hive (Hive No 1). Given that this morning I couldn't locate the queen under the excluder (in Hive 2), I am concerned the queen from hive 2 hive may have made her way into the adjacent hive No 1.

Does anyone think that this could that have happened by any chance?

 

[XYZ]

When I cleaned out the trays under my poly hives last night I noticed maybe 10 or less dead bees on each tray. Is this normal?

 

[enrico]

When I cleaned out the trays under my poly hives last night I noticed maybe 10 or less dead bees on each tray. Is this normal?

Yes.. you will get losses all winter. Its nature
E

 

[XYZ]

Yes.. you will get losses all winter. Its nature
E

Cheers Enrico!
I'm guessing they just got lost trying to get in the hive and croaked?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Cheers Enrico!
I'm guessing they just got lost trying to get in the hive and croaked?

yes, happens often if you leave the drop trays in.

 

[For want of a better word]

Quick question

Local farmer has offered me a nice sunny corner in a local field with good access for my bath chair.
Only problem is he sometimes puts stock ( sheeps) in the field.

Question is would sheeps attack the beehives or visa versa?

 

[Ian123]

What killer attack sheep.......no they won’t attack but may use as a scratching post so a little stock fence barrier would be of use and well worth a couple of hours to erect in a small corner. As long as live stock have the rest of the field to move into I’ve never had issues. Just ensure they are not restricted to a small area next to your site.

 

[tonyofarr]

You will have to fence the hives off from the rest of the field because sheep love to have a good scratch and beehives are just too tempting as scratching posts. We have permanent fences for our apiaries but we have used sheep hurdles when we have been pushed.

I have known stroppy bees chase a some of our sheep across the field but only because they came over and stood a few feet away when I had a queenless hive open. Sheep are pretty well protected from bees by their wool (most of the year) and will tend to keep away when the hives are open. Our sheep will not come anywhere near a person they do not know or us if our veils are over our faces so in theory they should not bother you when you open your hives.

 

[For want of a better word]

Thanks
I was thinking of something more portable like an electric fence, but wondered if the sheep would just push past it, being well insulated?

Have to get the bees out of our garden as our neighbour ( bit dim) says her grandchildren are allergic to bees and will get stung, has already complained that our bees were swarming on her ivy!

 

[Antipodes]

Why do queen bees change shape? I added a young but mated queen to a colony and she wasn't noticeably much bigger than a worker. Now, 2 weeks later, she is a noticeably larger- a fine looking queen. Also, I noticed that an older (2nd year) queen in another colony looks quite skinny in the abdomen.
Thanks.

 

[Ian123]

She’s now in full lay coming from a nuc? Also now being fed and cared for by a full colony

 

[Antipodes]

Thanks Ian. That sounds right. I got her (the big one), from a professional supplier. I put the skinny older one is in a small nuc a few weeks back (probably wasn't so skinny when I put her in), so I guess she has become skinny as they are not a full/strong colony.

 

[masterBK]

When is the swarming season in Tasmania as the workers reduce the feeding of the queen prior to swarming to slim her down so that she can fly.

 

[Antipodes]

Thanks MasterBK.

They usually swarm mid/late October, November and drop off early December.

I removed her from a hive (she's a bit chalkbroody), and replaced her with the new queen with fresh genetics (I'm trying what Mike Palmer suggests in that respect). I've kept her in a small half depth box just in case I need her. She's still laying and they are slowly building some honey stores. I can't see any signs of them swarming. Very slender abdomen.

 

[masterBK]

Queen will have less cells to lay in in a nucleus so bees will feed her less than in full size hive so presumably her abdomen will be less swollen with developing eggs.

 

[Beefriendly]

The final number of ovaries defines the size it's possible for a queens abdomen to be. This is dependent on the amount of royal jelly and the time the larvae are fed it during their development .
They can lose 25% of their body weight prior to swarming, a mixture of lack of food and aggressive shaking of the queen by the worker bees.
Many beekeepers have not noticed much relationship between queen abdomen size and fecundity. Even small queens can have a prodigious laying rate....but perhaps for not as long.