Category Archives: Hive management

A beekeeper asks – Removing bees from a rotted hive

Posted on July 19, 2012 | Comments Off on A beekeeper asks – Removing bees from a rotted hive

A beekeeper asks:
I have been given a colony of bees, it seems to be a very strong one, and it fills 3 deeps & a medium. My problem is it has been left undisturbed for about 8 years, the boxes & frames are rotting to the point of there being almost a 1 inch gap between some of the boxes, and as soon as you try to inspect a frame, the top falls apart. I truly think that beeswax & propolis are just about all that is holding the hive together.

How do I get the bees to move in to a new set of boxes without destroying the old hive in the process?

Phil’s reply:
While visiting beekeepers in Kentucky, I’ve observed this problem a number of times. Sometimes in hives, like yours, that had received no maintenance for years, most often abandoned hives that were falling apart from rot. I’ve also often run across hives containing frames that were not manipulated for so long that while the wood was still structurally sound, the frames were so glued together with propolis that the propolis bonds were stronger than the frames, with the same result – frames broke when an attempt was made to remove them. Both of these situations present the same problem, how to replace the frames or all the woodenware without tearing the hive apart and killing lots of bees? Continue reading →

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Posted in Hive management, Questions from beekeepers and Phil’s replies

Honey Bees As Thieves? Robbing Is a Problem This Time of Year

Posted on July 18, 2012 | 1 comment

Yes, our honey bees can become little criminals and steal from their neighbors! Their larceny is usually not much of a problem in the spring and early summer when a good nectar flow is on. But be alert! As the flow slows or stops, as is now occurring, bees are on the lookout for any source of food they can find. The closest source might be their neighbors’ hives. Weak hives (hives with decreased numbers of bees), new nucs or divides, recently captured swarms  – any hives that have not built up well or which are dwindling due to disease, pests, or other causes – are likely targets of robbing bees. Heavily robbed hives can face starvation very quickly, so beekeepers need to be observant to prevent or reduce this activity. The culprits may come from your own hives, from your neighbor’s, or from nearby bee trees.

A robbing response can also be triggered by beekeepers while working hives or removing honey supers at this time of year. Supers of honey, or even open brood boxes exposed in the bee yard, can be all the temptation that’s needed to initiate the behavior and, once begun, it quickly escalates. Try to go through hives quickly or cover boxes that are set off hives. When removing supers, take them out of your apiary as quickly as possible and keep them well covered if left temporarily outside. Continue reading →

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Posted in Hive management

Why aren’t the bees drawing out the foundation in my honey supers?

Posted on June 26, 2012 | 2 comments

Why aren’t the bees drawing out the foundation in my honey supers? This is a frequent question that I receive this time of year. My answer is that there are just a couple of factors involved in bees making wax and drawing out foundation into comb. These factors are strong bee populations and the presence of a nectar flow. The colony with a large population has more bees available to draw comb, plus a larger number of bees foraging and returning with nectar and bee bees available for processing the nectar into honey. We can think of a hive as a factory whose product is stored honey, the comb (which the workers must manufacture) is the storage units in the factory, the nectar is the raw material that must be brought into the factory to be processed and the bees are the workers. A honey factory short of workers cannot build the required storage (the comb), plus will have a reduced number of workers available to bring the nectar in. Without a nectar flow the workers have no need of additional storage and will not build the comb.

I thus tell beekeepers that report honey super foundation not being drawn out, does your hive(s) have this strong population? Is the hive(s) full of bees? Are bees covering every frame and is all of the comb in the brood chambers drawn and being utilized in the hive for either brood rearing or honey storage? Continue reading →

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Posted in Hive management, Questions from beekeepers and Phil’s replies

Ten Frames, Nine, or Even Eight in Honey Supers?

Posted on June 7, 2012 | Comments Off on Ten Frames, Nine, or Even Eight in Honey Supers?

In early May, I wrote a post on the topic Nine frames or ten in the brood box? Since that discussion was confined to brood boxes, I promised a future post on the subject of the ideal number of frames in honey supers. That discussion follows.

In the earlier post, I commented that beekeepers can manage hives with only nine frames, as long as they keep in mind the theory of bee space and the proclivity of honey bees to build burr comb whenever they have extra space available between frames. I ended by saying that, while I had maintained colonies with nine frame brood boxes in the past, I had arrived at the conclusion that using ten is a more productive management style for me, resulting in more bees and higher honey yields. I have a very different perspective when it comes to honey supers. I have used nine frames in my supers for many years, and am currently using eight on most of my hives.

To review a few basics: standard beekeeping equipment is designed for ten frames. Continue reading →

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Posted in Beginning Beekeeping, Hive management

Queen rearing by honey bees

Posted on May 12, 2012 | 2 comments

With all the swarming we’e been seeing this year our hives are busy producing new queens. I’ve written already this spring about my concerns of the replacement of queens in my hives. What follows is a brief article on the process of queen rearing by our bees.

It starts with queen cells
The first stage in the queen process is the creation of a special cell in which the queen will be reared, called a queen cell. There are three different kinds of queen cells, which are classified based on why the bees are producing new queens (and they rarely try to make just one queen at a time). These are: swarm cells; supersedure cells; and emergency cells.

Swarm cells and supersedure cells are both the result of the planned production of queens due to the hive preparing to swarm or sensing a need for a new queen because the current one is failing. These cells are made by the bees for the sole purpose of rearing a queen and in the beginning are called “queen cups.” The queen lays eggs in these cells and, from the start, the larvae hatched from these eggs are destined to be queens. The cells are a signal to the nurse bees to feed the larvae within the diet of royal jelly, which will cause them to develop into queens. Continue reading →

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Posted in Hive management, Honey bee biology

A Beekeepers Asks: Questions about missing queens and laying workers

Posted on May 2, 2012 | 2 comments

A beekeeper asks:
About three weeks ago I caught a very large swarm and immediately placed it in two deep hive bodies with 10 frames in each. I looked in the hive today and found the top box was almost completely full of capped honey, lots of bees, but no brood. The bottom box, had some capped honey at the top corners of the frames, little pollen and two frames in the middle with some capped brood. I did not see the queen and my question is how to tell if a queen is present in the hive?

Phil’s reply:
I never worry about seeing the queen, unless I’m making nucs (I do not want to move her), re-queening, or doing a task where I really need her in hand. I depend on seeing eggs or larvae to determine her presence.

With this heavy nectar flow and a new swarm, you are not likely to see brood in both boxes, even with a big swarm. The bees are putting lots of nectar in now. If you are seeing eggs or larvae (uncapped brood) in the bottom box, you have a queen. Don’t worry about actually seeing her. If you look in the area (on these frames) where you are seeing the brood, that is the most likely place for her to be hanging out.

You may wish to put a honey super (or two) on that hive. I have 2 hives containing large swarms I have caught, which are putting honey in supers.

A beekeeper asks:
About three weeks ago I had a large swarm emerge from a hive (I saw and captured it). The top box in that hive is full of capped honey, but the bottom one is almost empty with only a few cells of capped brood. I did not see the queen. I’m concerned about the hive. Advice?

Phil’s reply:
You say there is some capped brood in the bottom hive body. That indicates that there was egg laying occurring less than three weeks ago, perhaps a few days longer if that is capped drone brood. It can take a hive between 2-3 weeks to produce a laying queen after it swarms and leaves capped queen cells. As I said in a recent post, queens emerge 7 to 8 days after the queen cells are capped. (And swarms will depart as soon as that happens.) Another week will pass before the virgin queen is ready to make her mating flights. During that time, she reaches sexual maturity and makes orientation flights. After successfully mating, she will start laying eggs in 2 to 3 days. Added up, it takes 2 to 3 weeks for the new queen to start laying eggs after a hive swarms. I would give it a few more days before considering installing a new queen. You may have a virgin, or a newly mated queen that has not yet started laying eggs.

I sometimes call this period, from just after the hive swarms until most of the brood in the hive emerges, a time of “apparent queenlessness”. It looks as though the colony is without a queen, but it may, in fact, be in the process of producing a new one. Many a beekeeper has contacted me at this time of year to tell me they thought a hive was queenless. They placed a queen in the hive or started to install one, and discovered eggs or young larvae. I advise patience before installing a replacement queen in a hive that seems to be queenless at this time of year.

A beekeeper asks:
I have a hive that has dwindled. There is a laying queen and I continually see eggs, but there is never brood. At one time I moved a frame of nurse bees into the hive, thinking that might be an issue, but it did not help. There are some capped drone cells which makes me wonder if the queen is not laying and workers are. The eggs seem normally positioned in the cells. Just curious what you thought.

Phil’s reply:
You may have a queen who has run out of sperm, so she is laying only drone eggs. (I have in the past called these infertile queens, but that doesn’t really sound right. They are fertile because they can lay eggs -just not fertilized eggs that develop into workers). Beekeepers often call them “drone layers”. With both laying workers and a queen that has run “dry”, you get only drone eggs. But if you’re seeing the queen, you probably do not have laying workers.

Laying workers is a condition that can develop in a hive after it becomes hopelessly queenless, when some of the workers respond to the lack of queen and brood pheromones by starting to lay eggs. Workers cannot mate, so when the do lay, the result is the same as when a queen dries – nothing but drone brood. Though workers are always capable of laying eggs, their urge to do so is suppressed by the pheromones present in a normal hive. Since brood pheromone plays a role in the suppression as well as pheromones from the queen, it takes several weeks for laying workers to develop even after the queen is gone. We can postpone this behavior by moving a frame or two of capped brood into a hive that has been queenless for a long period.

To help determine whether you have laying workers or a queen that has run out of sperm when you don’t see the queen and are finding only drone eggs, here is what to look for:

  • Laying workers: Only drone brood in the hive, and seen in worker sized cells; multiple eggs in a cell (always more than one laying worker in hive, so more than one of them may lay in a cell); the drone brood is scattered (they miss cells). The workers do not have the instinct to lay in every cell and to position the eggs properly.
  • Dry queen: Drone brood only, and seen in worker size cells; not scattered and no multiple eggs in cells. The queen is laying, just laying unfertilized eggs.

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Posted in Hive management, Honey bee behavior, Honey bee biology, Questions from beekeepers and Phil’s replies

Nine frames or ten in the brood box?

Posted on May 1, 2012 | Comments Off on Nine frames or ten in the brood box?

I am often asked whether to use nine or ten frames in brood boxes. The answer is up to you, but here are my thoughts.

Conventional beekeeping boxes are designed for ten frames, which allows for the bee space (about 1/4”) between the combs when they are drawn out. Bee space is the largest gap that bees will leave as open space without trying to fill it with unwanted comb. I have often seen hives where the bee space has been violated, and the bees built an extra comb, often attaching two adjacent frames. It is messing with Mother Nature when we push the envelope on bee space, but beekeepers love to be innovative (or sloppy – I’m a sloppy old stick in the mud myself), so we push this limit all the time.

Fortunately, there is some wiggle room in the bee space concept. If we only remove one frame in the brood box and go to nine, keeping the remaining frames evenly spaced, the violation of the bee space is so slight that we can get by with it most of the time. Some beekeepers prefer to use nine frames because it leaves more room between the combs, making it easier to remove and replace frames.

However, it is important to ALWAYS keep these nine frames evenly spaced and ALWAYS, when starting brood boxes with frames containing new foundation, start with ten frames. If you wish to use nine ultimately, remove one when the comb on nine or ten of them has been drawn out. If you start with nine, the bees will often build that layer of extraneous comb right away.

Brood comb – a result of too much space between frames

Continue reading →

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Posted in A Tale of Two Hives, Beginning Beekeeping, Hive management

I’ll be keeping an eye on the queens inside my hives

Posted on April 28, 2012 | 8 comments

I’ll start this post by saying that this an unusual spring here in Kentucky, so my beekeeping is a little off kilter. In more typical years, I put honey supers on in early to mid-April and do not see substantial nectar and honey storage until late April. This year, due to the mild winter and a spring that appeared to start in February, I put honey supers (with drawn comb) on in mid-March. That was a little early but, as you know, I was headed to the far side of the world on March 15th,  and I knew the supers would be needed earlier than usual. When I returned in early April, these hives were overflowing with bees and were already storing large amounts of nectar. I promptly added every super I had onto the hives. By mid-April I had some supers full of honey and now have hives with two supers or more each, full and capped. Next week I’m pulling them and extracting honey. That gives you an idea of the nectar flow here, but the story I was leading up to is the swarming. Continue reading →

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Posted in Beginning Beekeeping, Hive management

Tale of Two Nucs: Post 2 – Why make and maintain nucs?

Posted on April 22, 2012 | Comments Off on Tale of Two Nucs: Post 2 – Why make and maintain nucs?

Many beekeepers use nuc production as a method of swarm control. By removing brood and bees from strong hives in the spring, before they begin swarm behavior, beekeepers can often keep the bees they have while simultaneously either increasing the number of their hives or producing nucs for sale. I also use them as a method of storing queens for later use, both for short term storage of multiple queens in a single nuc (a queen bank), and for individual queens in nucs which may be combined later with existing hives for queen replacement. In reality, I set up nucs from spring through mid-summer, as I have time, available queens, and strong hives to serve as a source of brood and bees, without a firm plan for how any individual nuc will be used in the future. By May or June I may have set up one nuc for every four or so hives in my apiary. Some of these will become full sized colonies, but others will be used for different purposes.

If I should discover that one of my hives has become queenless, I can have a new queen in that hive in ten minutes by combining an established nuc with the queenless hive. I also use the nucs as a source of replacements for aged and failing queens, and for queens producing offspring with undesirable genetic characteristics. Continue reading →

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Posted in A Tale of Two Nucs, Hive management

A Tale of Two Nucs: Post 1 – Prologue

Posted on April 19, 2012 | 1 comment

My queen shipment has arrived, and I will start making nucs tomorrow. The first post in A Tale of Two Nucs will follow shortly. As I mentioned earlier, this series will begin with the making of two nucs and will follow them until they are established. For new beekeepers, think of a nuc as a starter hive, set up with several frames taken from an existing hive. These frames contain drawn comb with bees, pupae (final stage of developing bees), honey, and pollen – a bit of everything a colony needs, except a queen. She is added separately, usually in a queen cage.

My queens arrived in a device called a battery, a method used for shipping several at a time, usually 15 or more. The queen cages, either wood or plastic, are the same as for queens shipped individually. The difference is in the attendant bees. In a battery, there are no attendants in the cages, each of which contains a solitary queen.

The queen cages are placed in a cardboard box (typical if the queen cages are wood) or in a plastic container (if the cages are plastic), and the attendant bees (from 25 to 100, depending on the number of queens in the shipment) are in outer containers, or battery boxes. Continue reading →

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Posted in A Tale of Two Nucs, Hive management