Absconding apideas

[Neils]

Checked through the apideas this afternoon and it looks lie three of them have absconded, combs drawn, they had food but not a bee in sight?

What did we do wrong?

[fatshark]

Overcrowded? In full sun? Or both? Do you place QE over the entrance once the queen in mated and laying?

[Jon]

The other possibility is that the bees left with the queen on a mating flight and failed to return. I have witnessed this several times.
But they definitely abscond if left in the sun.
Ours are set out in a totally shaded area under a mature Lime tree.

1099

[Neils]

Full sun would be my guess then. Bugger, live and learn.

[Jon]

We use this site which is about 300 yards from the drone colonies as there is no shade at the other place.

if you find an empty apidea have a good look around for the contents as they wont be far away.
All you have to do is walk over with the apidea and retrieve the bees and queen.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE1rhEXfVRw


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odVS3i1pEV4

[drumgerry]

One of my apideas absconded but thankfully I think because the queen larva hadn't developed properly and was dead in cell.

[Jon]

I put excluder strips over all my apideas with laying queens about 10 days ago.
I watched a couple try and abscond this afternoon but the bees came back as the queen could not get out.

The excluder is not a fail safe though.
I found another apidea which had a content of one bee, the queen, and she was near starvation point.
I rescued her and put her in an introduction cage to make up a nuc.
Sometimes the absconding bees just seem to disappear and sometimes they end up in another apidea which is then likely to abscond due to over population.

[prakel]

Yesterday I found what I initially thought to be a small, very small, cast but on reflection over night I'm now thinking that they may well be a gang of abscondees from an apidea or similar. Where were they? Living quite happily inside a miller feeder. I must have walked past them three times before even realizing that they were there.

[gavin]

Having had no absconding Apideas last year, this year I've seen several. Yesterday's, belonging to a forum member, left behind two worker bees, much of the fondant they were supplied with, some nice comb, a little pollen, and less than a day's worth of nicely laid eggs. I'd blame that particular paving slab, but a couple behind the shed did the same some weeks ago. Yesterday's were also stocked with different bees from the earlier ones.

[Jon]

Some apideas will still abscond even when you do everything right.
The temptation is to take the queen out and put her in an introduction cage as soon as you see eggs but if you do this she may well be rejected or superseded early.
30-35 days from emergence is the optimum time for introduction to a new colony. (Rhodes and Denny (http://www.beekeeping.com/articles/us/research_australia.htm))
Some abscond almost as soon as the queen starts to lay whereas others are happy to pack out the apidea with bees and brood.
As a compromise, removing the queen after about 10 days when there is sealed brood and you can check the pattern is probably the best option.
It is really annoying to find an empty apidea which had a queen laying perfectly.

PS. the queen I found on her own in the post above was dead in the cage when I checked later so she must have been in bad shape.
I usually put 3 workers in the cage so maybe the bees in the nuc did not think she was worth feeding.

[Rosie]

You lot frightened me when I read that apideas abscond when in full sun. My Warnholz nucs are in full sun and have just had a couple of days that must have been the warmest and brightest of the season. I checked and found them all happily enjoying the conditions. I wonder if Apideas are worse for this than other types of mini-nuc.

I usually introduce my new queens as soon as the their first batch of larvae are capped so that I can be certain they are not laying drones. I haven't introduced a large number but I haven't had a failure yet.

Steve

[gavin]

It didn't look to me that absconding was worse during the hotter spells but they probably did need a little sun to head off.

What about height off the ground? Two I have a metre or so off the ground have stayed put despite a degree of overcrowding whereas their sister were off.

[Adam]

I've had a few absconders this year - it does sort of coincide with hot weather - although most are OK and some aren't. One absconded when there was just eggs in the hive so there was hardly a chance of putting a queen excluder over the entrance before she was off. I've also had a couple of queens from my plywood ones abscond too. On both occasions, they were well-balanced colonies, with room and with stores, queen been laying for a few weeks. Not what I would have expected. I have a period of melancholy when I discover that one has gone. :(

Jon, do you drop the slider to expose the ventillation screen when your apideas get full to allow them to keep cooler?

Note to self: It's going to be warm and sunny for the next few days.....

[Jon]

Jon, do you drop the slider to expose the ventilation screen when your apideas get full to allow them to keep cooler?

I don't, but that sounds like a good idea.

The best strategy to avoid absconding is to get the queen out and into a nuc asap after brood is sealed although like you I have had some abscond leaving just eggs.

The other thing you can do is cage the queen after she has laid up the frames and put the cage in the feeder. best to put a couple of attendants in the cage as well in case the rest of them abscond and don't come back. On a couple of occasions I have found just the queen in an apidea. I watched one apidea try and abscond several times on the same afternoon.

[prakel]

Do any of you guys using apidea/kieler type boxes shake out frames of bees (for use elsewhere) to control the adult population? Might that work in such small boxes?

[Jon]

I remove frames of sealed brood from populous apideas, shake off the bees and put the brood in apideas which are short of bees.
The other thing you can do is swap position of two apideas at night to equalise numbers but you obviously can't do this if virgins have already orientated.
If you are removing queens and replacing them with another queen cell this works well.

[Adam]

I remove frames of sealed brood from populous apideas, shake off the bees and put the brood in apideas which are short of bees.
The other thing you can do is swap position of two apideas at night to equalise numbers but you obviously can't do this if virgins have already orientated.
If you are removing queens and replacing them with another queen cell this works well.

I too remove a brood-frame and swap-out. A few days ago I removed a populous mini-nuc from beside a wooden mini-nuc. The following morning the flying bees went to the larger mini-nuc next to where their home used to be, this was the plan - to strengthen the wooden nuc and build it up to over-winter. Unfortunately it started a bout of robbing. I have removed the mini-nuc to my out apiary unfortunately, I think the queen has gone.
Another melancholy moment for me. :(

Any left-over mini-nucs are combined over nucs or less-populous hives - depending on their location. I don't like to waste bees. Either the mini-nucs are emptied of stores once the brood has gone or the frames are filled so I have capped stores for next year.

[gavin]

I've had a few absconders this year ....

Murray* was describing to me the other night strange strong swarming/absconding behaviour in an apiary not far from the association site where several (most!) Apideas absconded. Something he saw last about 20 years ago. And my own bees were swarming from queenright splits within a couple of days of splitting. Maybe it is just that kind of year.

* I was seeking data from him relevant to the East-West colony loss issue raised in the Scottish Beekeeper ... for something I'll write for the Scottish Beekeeper this weekend.

[fatshark]

Do any of you guys using apidea/kieler type boxes shake out frames of bees (for use elsewhere) to control the adult population? Might that work in such small boxes?

Assuming there's more of the season left I do the opposite ... when a Kieler is getting full I add a super, get them to draw frames and expand into it, then I split the boxes into two for a later round of mating. Last season this worked well, this season - because of the dreadful weather - less so. Mid/late season I just stop splitting them into two. The intention is to have packed double height Kielers at the end of the season. About half my Kielers are now double deckers that will go into the winter.

If I simply want to control numbers in the box I do as Jon does and remove sealed brood to a weaker Kieler ...

[Jon]

Assuming there's more of the season left..

I hope so as We put over 70 cells into apideas this week.

[prakel]

Forgive the late reply but I've been dealing with other 'stuff' and not really had the mind to sit at a computer for a couple of weeks.

I asked about shaking bees out as it strikes me that doing so would help control the 'age' of the colony; reducing the older work force which is then replaced with newly emerged bees -my conjecture being that such an action might stall the urge to abscond.