My luck seems to be running out

[Floyd]

Having had to unite two coloneys, I fed wih a 1:1 soluion in a rapid feeder the one with the fine mesh.(Hive 2)

On my return 8 days later for some reason the syrup had crystalised over the mesh, not allowing the bees to feed. Lost a large amount of bees. I was planning on merging this hive with my only good hive, the others as from my previous post did not make it.

However, got into the remaining hive yesterday and the queen must have gone senile! Her laying pattern is ridiculous. She has layed patches of brood over 9 frames and not even all in the centre of the frames.

The hive will certainly be struggling to raise this brood.

Any suggestions, I was going to sacrife the frames which have the largest percentage of drone brood on and maybe move the strongest frames to a 5 frame nuc.

It would also be a good idea to merge hive 2 to this hive, can this all be done at the same time. The nuc has a OMF so was thinking could I put this over the existing crown board for a couple of days. then shake the remaining bees from the full hive into the nuc, would you suggest using air freshner to speed up the merge.

Any suggestions welcome, feels like the bees are trying their best to make me an ex-beekeeper.

[fatshark]

Hi Floyd
Is the queen laying drones or is it worker cells scattered all over the place? If its randomly scattered drones it suggests you've got laying workers.

[The Drone Ranger]

Floyd
If you have one good hive I would keep looking after that one separately
I'm a bit of a safety first kind of beekeeper

The one with the weird brood I would search that till I found a queen
If you can find her cage her with a few workers and some candy take her into your warm house

After a day introduce a little patch of very young brood and eggs (perhaps just a cut out) from the good hive into the weird one
Hopefully they will start a queen cell

If you can get a few pics of the brood in the problem hive you can get better advice

The type of feeder you used is a contact feeder if the sugar is in any way not totally dissolved they do clog
A frame feeder or a rapid feeder doesn't suffer in that way

[gavin]

If its randomly scattered drones it suggests you've got laying workers.

Could even be scattered drone brood left from the old queen if she went more than 21 days ago.

Can you take a picture Floyd?

Scattered worker brood would be very weird.

Sent from my BlackBerry 8520 using Tapatalk

[GRIZZLY]

Inbred queen perhaps ?

[Floyd]

I started to worry about inbreeding last year. Weather here continues to be awful, will hopefully get into the hive tomorrow and take some pics.

Many thanks

[Floyd]

Just thought I would update my post.

Was advised by an old beekeeper to shake out the hive due to a Laying Worker. So removed the queen and shook out the hive. Actually did it twice over two days as a further bit of insurance, they certainly don't appreciate this manipulation!

Went back in last week and the queen has bounced right back with a perfect laying pattern over 6 frames. Took the opportunity to split the hive as I need to increase my stocks.

Went in yesterday and the split hive (Hive 2) had raised about 10 queen cells. Moved the youngest with a frame of brood and two of stores to a 5 frame nuc, removing all queen cells from the hive 2, fed both with 1:1. I have a queen coming from Andrew Abrahams next week. So will keep removing queen cells from Hive 2.

Having never introduced a bought in queen, what is the most successful method, how long should the cage be kept closed before plugging with fondant.

Many thanks for your help much appreciated.

[Dark Bee]

Every beekeeper probably has different views and nothing necessarily wrong with that.
I like simplicity and use the Butler cage - a wire mesh oblong with one end open and a block of wood in the other. I wrap a piece of 3/4" tape around the blocked end - it is important for the queen to be able to escape and hide if the natives are hostile. The other end is sealed with a lump of Q. cage candy - icing sugar and honey warmed and mixed together until very firm. the cage is suspended between two frames and hive is left alone.
It is also possible to make a mesh cage a few inches square and stick it over emerging brood. It is nowadays possible to get a plastic cage fixed with four pegs to do the same job - I have not used this variation but would think it to be superior.
On Dave Cushmans site there is a cage design by Albert Knight, where the release time is decided by the beekeeper - have a look. Bees usually ball the cage when first introduced, it is quite instructional to see this - so perhaps a piece of clear plastic over a feed hole (in crown Board) if you can?

[Jon]

Any plastic introduction cage will work.
The key factors are
-make sure the colony is really queenless
-only open the tab on the cage when the bees have stopped being aggressive towards its occupant.
-you get a higher success rate intruding a queen to a nuc rather than a full colony
-you get a higher success rate introducing a queen to young bees rather than older foragers

Incidentally, that advice about shaking out laying workers is engrained among the older beekeepers but it is nonsense.
Laying workers can fly and there are usually hundreds in a colony rather than a single laying worker.

I doubt you even had laying workers when you had a queen in the colony which was coming into lay. Gavin gave you the most likely explanation in post 4.

[Jimbo]

Andrew usually sends his queens in the orange or yellow plastic travel cage. There will be a little block of fondant at one end with a little rectangle plastic bit that you snap off. You usually hang the cage between the frames of bees and when accepted they chew through the fondant to release the queen after a few days.