Week 3: Hive inspection

[richard d]

Hello all,

Just inspected my two rooftop hives, West and East.  Here's what I did and saw in each.

**** West Hive ****

The bees looked active.  I pre-smoked the hive entrance and top before opening it, but about 10 seconds after I opened the hive they started lining up on the top bar of one of the frames.  I remember reading in Beeping for Dummies this means they are watching you, so i puffed them a couple of more times w/ smoke.  When i did this the bees retreated into their hive. 

About 6 of the 10 frames were drawn out with comb, though *none* of the cells were capped.  About 5% of the cells had a dark amber viscous liquid in them, and about 30% of the cells had a clear liquid, which I assumed was  unripe honey.  The rest were either empty or had the clear liquid in them which I wasn't able to see (it's hard to see through the bee veil).

One unusual thing I saw in this hive only was a massive cluster of about 50 bees on one of the frames.  At first I thought this was the queen and her retinue, but as I observed further, I began to doubt this was the case because the cluster wasn't moving.  All the times I saw the queen in YouTube videos she was moving around busily laying eggs.

I saw no baby bees emerging from any of the cells.

Another thing unique to this hive was that the buzzing increased dramatically when I first smoke the hive.  This did not happen when I smoked the East hive.

The last thing I did was to add a second super and 8 more frames.  The night before I reinforced the floppy wax foundations with wire.  I also refilled the hivetop feeder.

About 60% of the pollen patty had been consumed over a 2 week period.  Though there were no capped cells, these bees appeared to be much hungrier than those in the East hive.

The big question I have about this hive: Is the queen dead?

*****East hive*****

I followed the same opening procedure with this hive.  There was not an increase in buzzing sound when I smoked it, and from the outside there appeared to be less activity than at the other hive.

I noticed several very tiny red bugs crawling up the hive (I'm almost positive they are clover mites because of the red stain they left when I crushed them).

When I started inspecting the frames, I noticed a lot of capped cells. Some of the bees were dunking their heads into the cells and drinking the liquid within; I took this as a sign the smoke was having the desired effect.  I noticed about the same total number of cells with amber viscous liquid in them as in the other hive, but in this hive their proportion was a lot smaller because there were a lot more cells drawn out. 

I would say in all there was about 2 full frames of capped cells, not including the three frames that were too stuck together to remove.

I did see about 2 larger cells (done cells?) per frame.

Only 20% of the pollen patty was consumed over a 2 week period.

The bees only consumed 1/3 of their sugar syrup.  The last thing I did with was top off the syrup solution and add a second super w/ 9 frames.

What does everyone think about the West hive: is the west hive queenless?

Richard 

[Jeff Miller]

Richard,

Did you see any eggs in the bottoms of any of the cells in the West Hive?   They look like tiny pieces of rice.

DCHoneybees.com
Jeff Miller
Je...@DCHoneybees.com
Georgetown, DC
703 201 7369

[Richard DiPrima]

Jeff

No - not that I could see. But the cells were deep, so it's possible I just didn't see them. Is it significant that none of the cells in the west hive were capped?

Richard

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[Jeff Miller]

It is certainly unusual that none is capped   One solution may be to take a frame o open brood from your healthy hive and add it to the potentially queenless hive. Repeat one week later. They will make a queen from this brood and the new bees will strengthen the hive. 

Sent from my iPhone

[richard d]

Jeff,

I may have to do that, as the more I read, the more I think the queen may have been killed.  On this thread from Bee Source, one person comments that a queenless hive is louder and more irritable (see first response to original post):

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?207674-Is-my-queen-alive

The West hive was much louder than the east one, and the buzzing in the West hive increased audibly when I smoked it.

Is it possible to purchase another queen from the Russian bee purveyor?

[Jeff Miller]

Yes, queens can be purchased, not necessarily from the original purveyor.  Russian, carniolan, russian mixes.  With shipping they are in the $50 range.  I’d recommend the Carni’s or russian mixes now.  Let me know if I can help!

Jeff.