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pvtpilot_gw

Moving up the brood hive

pvtpilot
17 years ago

I have a captured swarm that has filled a medium super with brood/honey. I've since added a full size box to the top of that in hope that the queen will work her way up. Can I swap the boxes and put the medium super on top of the (as yet empty) full-sized brood hive?

The reason I started with a medium super was that was all I had available when the swarm was discovered.

-Rich in NH

Comments (8)

  • txbeeguy
    17 years ago

    Does the brood box have already drawn comb? If it does, then it doesn't really matter if you switch them or not; you can if you wish. If the brood box is just foundation, then I'd say at this point in the season, it would be much better to combine them with an existing weaker hive as they're not likely to survive the coming winter. There's an old English saying, "A swarm in May is worth a load of hay; a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in July is not worth a fly." This is because the colony typically doesn't have enough time to get itself established, repopulate/replace the aged field force and accumulate enough food stores to survive the entire Winter (most starve during mid to late Spring). You obviously can increase their chances by continued heavy feeding now and in the Spring (assuming they survive that long). Your proper course of action really depends on the answer to my first question. Now is NOT the time of year you want the bees pulling fresh wax (at least in the northern hemisphere).

  • pvtpilot
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    The brood box is not drawn out yet, only the frames in the medium super as previously mentioned.
    Here's my bee history: I started with 2 hives in April 2006, one has always been strong (#1), the other (#2) not so strong. Then the swarm came in early July which made #3 hive. I've been feeding hives #2 & #3. The #1 hive has 2 brood boxes full, a medium super full of honey and some drawn comb in second (top) medium super.
    What sould I do? Combine hives #2 and #3...the two weak ones? continue to feed them? Should I share honey from #1 ? My goal here is to get them through the winter.
    It's my 1st time combining hives. As I understand it, one hive is placed on top of the other seperated by a sheet of newsprint between the boxes... the bees will chew through the paper in time? Will the workers of one colony kill their queen or is that my job?
    I certainly appreciate you taking the time to post a reply. Being new at this I can use all the pointers I can get. Thanks in advance...
    Rich- in NH

  • txbeeguy
    17 years ago

    Yes, my recommendation would be to combine your hives #2 and #3. It sounds like your hive #2 has been weak all along (at least, relative to your #1 hive) if you're having to feed them even now. Since you have your #1 hive to judge against, as to how a good/great performing hive should do (all things being equal), I would say the "blame" for the poor performance of hive #2 resides with the genetics of the queen in that hive. To that end, I would also recommend you take the active step to kill her when you combine the two hives (#2 and #3). Some beekeepers may disagree with me on this point since the genetics of the swarm queen (hive #3) is also unknown - they may see it as a gamble on her unknown genetics. My argument would be the "upside" is the possibility that you may do a lot better with her genetics and the "downside" is that she may not be a whole lot worse than what youÂve already experienced with the #2 queenÂs genetics. There is also the possibility during the combining procedure, the #3 queen won't be accepted by the workers of hive #2 and may be killed - which, this late in the season would be disastrous. However, I don't consider this to be a major concern since you have plenty of workers from the swarm hive to protect "their" queen.

    Yes, use the newspaper method. I would recommend that you NOT cut slits in the single layer of newspaper. Two relatively full hives of bees such as you have, will chew their way through the newspaper plenty fast enough as it is. The whole idea, after all, is to somewhat slow this process. I would find the queen (#2 hive), commit your royal murder, and combine the two hives right away. After a couple of hours, the bees in hive #2 will get their sense of queenlessness and the bees in hive #3 (the TOP hive) will begin to integrate successfully.

    Remove supers with foundation now - wax pulling season is over. Do everything possible to encourage your bees to store food/honey supplies for winter (NOT pull more wax or raise more brood). Check with other local beekeepers to see how much honey is needed in your area for the bees to survive the winter. Answers will vary but you'll get a rough idea how much is needed. A brood-sized box full of honey is roughly 90 pounds; a medium-sized super is about 35 pounds of honey - judge from there if your #1 hive has enough to share. Good luck.

  • txbeeguy
    17 years ago

    Yes, my recommendation would be to combine your hives #2 and #3. It sounds like your hive #2 has been weak all along (at least, relative to your #1 hive) if you're having to feed them even now. Since you have your #1 hive to judge against, as to how a good/great performing hive should do (all things being equal), I would say the "blame" for the poor performance of hive #2 resides with the genetics of the queen in that hive. To that end, I would also recommend you take the active step to kill her when you combine the two hives (#2 and #3). Some beekeepers may disagree with me on this point since the genetics of the swarm queen (hive #3) is also unknown - they may see it as a gamble on her unknown genetics. My argument would be the "upside" is the possibility that you may do a lot better with her genetics and the "downside" is that she may not be a whole lot worse than what youÂve already experienced with the #2 queenÂs genetics. There is also the possibility during the combining procedure, the #3 queen won't be accepted by the workers of hive #2 and may be killed - which, this late in the season would be disastrous. However, I don't consider this to be a major concern since you have plenty of workers from the swarm hive to protect "their" queen.

    Yes, use the newspaper method. I would recommend that you NOT cut slits in the single layer of newspaper. Two relatively full hives of bees such as you have, will chew their way through the newspaper plenty fast enough as it is. The whole idea, after all, is to somewhat slow this process. I would find the queen (#2 hive), commit your royal murder, and combine the two hives right away. After a couple of hours, the bees in hive #2 will get their sense of queenlessness and the bees in hive #3 (the TOP hive) will begin to integrate successfully.

    Remove supers with foundation now - wax pulling season is over. Do everything possible to encourage your bees to store food/honey supplies for winter (NOT pull more wax or raise more brood). Check with other local beekeepers to see how much honey is needed in your area for the bees to survive the winter. Answers will vary but you'll get a rough idea how much is needed. A brood-sized box full of honey is roughly 90 pounds; a medium-sized super is about 35 pounds of honey - judge from there if your #1 hive has enough to share. Good luck.

  • pvtpilot
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Due to incompatible weather conditions and my work schedule her highness was granted a temporary stay of execution.

    However...

    The Royal Execution occured today 10/7/06. Hive #2 is now on top of the swarm hive and their queen. After re-reading your post you mentioned the hive #2 should be the bottom hive... did I make a serious mistake?

  • txbeeguy
    17 years ago

    No, you did fine.

  • txbeeguy
    17 years ago

    A couple of thoughts based on old bee folklore more than anything else when it comes to requeening and/or merging hives. Mind you, I know of no "factual" data to back this up, just long-standing custom (maybe some would take acceptation to this and I certainly won't be defending these):
    My mind just gravitated back to the idea that the new queen you want to keep (when merging hives) should be placed on top. The old lore says she somehow gets an advantage from this...I don't know if it's true, but it is something I usually consider (even if I don't necessarily always follow it).
    And the second thing is, the younger queen has the advantage when it comes to "fighting it out" - in other words, the old queen is more likely to receive the death sentence. Again, I don't know if it's really true but it's what I remember being passed around as the gospel. Since you found and killed your less desirable queen, this shouldn't be a problem for you.

    And when it comes to swarming, it is the old queen that leaves and the young, new queen that stays behind (unless, of course, your hive has thrown off multiple swarms, in which case some of the swarms are bound to be with young virgin queens). Anybody else got any of these old "truisms"?

  • pvtpilot
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Here are my thoughts. First, the bees will sort it all out in a way that is ment to be. Second, if I had done nothing, neither colony would have much chanceof winter survival.
    Did I murder the weaker queen? Maybe, maybe not... considering I kept the swarm queen, I may have killed the younger queen in hive #2.
    Observations day after the merger...
    Hive #1 (strong hive) was abuzz with what seemed to be agitated activity and many duking it out on the front landing pad. There were some obvious drone evictions occuring, but there seemed to be other bee confusion in the air. Many bees on, and around, the entrance to hive #1. The merged hives were in a less agitated state. My guess is there were many workers returning to a missing hive that caused this. I merged the hives on a warm, sunny day about 1:00pm... my reasoning was to have a better chance of spotting her highness with fewer workers in the hive. That planning seemed to work.
    So, what is my next step... if any? Again, my goal is to help them survive the winter. All supers with foundation have been removed to discourage comb production.

    Rich
    Lakes Region, NH

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