# Hmm... do I need to split?



## Forest (Oct 14, 2010)

First year beek here again.

Got my 3 lb package & Carnolian queen in early May. They got off to a great start. At this point, I have 4 medium hive bodies on, two are brood, one is full of mostly capped honey and a little brood, and the last one is about a third full of honey, with the remainder of frames in the process of being drawn (I put this on a week and a half ago; I do foundationless with small cell starter strips).

Here are the things that confuse me:

1. I have massive amounts of drones. There are some frames in the brood nest that are almost exclusively drone sized, and they're full of brood. I'd guess (with probably questionable accuracy, since I'm a beginner) that I have several thousand drones in the hive. Last week, we had a bit of rain, and the bees threw what I am assuming was almost fully formed drone brood out of the hive (the most developed ones I could see were drones, and a few adult drones were also thrown out). They kept dragging them off, but there were probably twenty or so there at any time that were in the process of being dragged away. I didn't see obvious signs of disease (e.g. mites).

Do I have an old queen (she is marked white)? Could this be normal in the foundationless setting? 

2. At my last inspection half a week back, I didn't see the queen- I wasn't too worried, since the hive is so full of bees, I could have missed her- but also couldn't see eggs (I've had a hard time spotting those consistently) or very young larvae (those, I have seen usually). I did see some uncapped "middle aged" larvae, but few. There were many "holes" of empty cells in the formerly pretty solid capped brood frames. Some contained nectar.

At the time, I just figured that the weather wasn't so great, so maybe the queen wasn't laying as much.

3. I've had two open (and, as far as I can tell, empty) queen cups in the brood nest, one for about three weeks and the second for about one week. They are at the top of their respective frames, so I am guessing they are supersedure cells, not swarm cells.

4. The last few days, I have had increasing amounts of bees clustering at the front of the hive. When I say clustering, I mean not just a couple dozen bees hanging out there, but a solid cluster three or four bees deep that today covers the entrance and the front of the lowest two medium hive bodies and looks like a swarm to me. I usually see it in the evening, but I'm not around during the day. They stay out even if it rains. The weather has been 70ies to mid 80ies with occasional thunderstorms, and humid. 

Soooo the big question... do I need to be worried about swarming at this point? Should I split the hive (Of course I'm itching to do that anyways, but had kind of expected to have to wait until next spring)? Is it too late for splitting this year? Should I give them some empty frames in the brood area and/or add another honey super instead to keep them busy? Improve ventialtion?

Let me hear your words of wisdom, please, wise bee-masters... :bow:


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## GeoCitizen (Feb 24, 2014)

A medium is 2/3 the volume of a deep. So four mediums is like having two deeps and one medium or two deeps and two supers, so this isn't excessively large. Going into winter you will probably want to remove one of those mediums. Personally, I like the idea of using mostly one size box. You will have more flexibility as winter approaches.

A queen marked with white is from either 2006 (very unlikely) or 2011. If that's really the case, she probably long past her prime and you need to find her, kill her and requeen. Since you said you are a new beekeeper, where did you get this old-hag? Don't buy from that place again! 

From memory, drones should be about 10% of your colony population in the summer. If your colony is becoming increasingly drone populated and you aren't finding any normal capped brood, you may be queenless or your queen stopped producing (usually the hive will replace her). If the hive goes queenless for too long the worker bees can begin laying eggs. The problem is these eggs will develop into ONLY into drones and the hive is doomed. Assuming the workers are laying eggs, you must requeen. Egg laying workers can never make a female and therefore can never make a queen. There may be other things you need to do to stop workers from laying eggs. I never had the problem so I don't know. I just know its a bad thing.

I would be interested in hearing what others say, but a three year old queen needs to be helped to bee-heaven. Don't wait! Worker's laying eggs needs to be addressed NOW.

I wouldn't worry about bees clustering outside. Its not uncommon to have hundreds if not a thousand hanging out. If you have a sticky board, pull it out. I have my top cover propped up in the front about bee space height. This, along with a missing sticky board helps with air flow and hive cooling. Last summer when it was in the 90's, I stuck two quarters between each box to help with air flow. Since the space is less than bee space had I left them there they would have closed the space with proplis! 

Good luck.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I would not worry about the bearding at the entrance when it is hot and humid. I would prop the hive cover to help with hive ventilation though.

If I had comb that was 80% drones I would pull it and put it in the freezer for 24 hours. You don't need all those drones as the bees are saying by dragging them out of the hive. Will also help reduce the mite numbers.

Yup an Old hag of a queen replace her ASAP with a new one. She may be a drone layer why you have so many drones. 
Normally queens are replaced at least every two years.

 Al


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## beegrowing (Apr 1, 2014)

I don't know about foundationless langs but top bar hives have a lot more drones than regular langs do, so you need to find out the "normal" percentage from a foundationless beek with experience.

I agree with alleyyooper about pulling some drone comb out. I feed some of mine to the chickens and some goes back into the hive after being frozen. 
Drones will be evicted in summer if there is a shortage of food(dearth). I had a thousand killed off mid summer last year and had to research it. My TB was Also crowded and with a few bars left to go and they swarmed anyway even after I tried to lure them into an extension. 
It was a bit alarming to see the population decline to 1/4 what it had been but my Carnies were prolific too And they made an excellent local bred queen and they survived the winter! I couldn't get local bees so was happy to get local genetics anyway(in the long run). They build up to full again before reducing in the Fall and I got a good honey harvest(for a TB) this Spring. This year I split them twice because I was ready! One of the splits didn't get a queen made but they accepted the one I bought and are doing great.

Best wishes on your wonderful bee venture. It's been the greatest new thing I did for myself in years!


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## Forest (Oct 14, 2010)

Thanks for the advice, all.

I've done the propping-up of the outer cover and there are what I consider a normal amount of bees at the entrance now, so that helped; thanks for the tip!

I'm pretty peeved about the old queen, to tell you the truth. Would it be unreasonable to ask for a new one? It would seem to me that if I spend 28 bucks on a queen that it wouldn't be too much to expect a "fresh "one?

Thanks for the drone percentage number. I don't think that there are more than 10 % drones in the hive- some areas have more than others, but overall I wouldn't think more than 10 % of all bees.

At this time, the brood nest appears to be mainly empty frames or capped bood (many hatching workers). I am pretty sure I have seen a few eggs today, although they were very few... But I wasn't able to do a full inspection due to lack of time. That has to wait until Friday; I'll make a decision then. If there is no definite new eggs and brood, I'll order a successor.

I kinda hate having to replace her, because despite everything the hive has done well so far and they have put in a ton of honey.

Do any of you have experience with Buckfast queens? What do you guys think about them?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

From what I have heard there is no pure buckfast queens in the states.
Elder moment right now but seems they were stopped being imported into the states many years ago for some reason.

 Al


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## Forest (Oct 14, 2010)

Update: She's alive!

I went through all four hive boxes today and the queen is alive and there are plenty of eggs and young open brood. 

When I did the propping-up of the cover, I also pulled some frames from the brood chamber into the third medium box. This had been full of honey, and I moved some of the honey into the fourth box, which hadn't been fully drawn.

Now, I have two boxes with almost exclusive brood (and a lot of pollen and some nectar in the lowest), followed by the third box, which is now half brood, half honey (she is doing a lot of her egg laying here, from what I can see), and a fourth box that is half full of drawn and partially capped honey and half full of comb being drawn and being filled with nectar.

The weather has been fantastic and there was lots of flying activity over the last half week. I have seen no more brood being thrown out. 

Now I'm wondering if she just wasn't laying because the weather was bad? The book says Carnolians will shut down brood rearing in a dearth-

In any case I think I need more than one hive in case I do go queenless, which I probably will sometime soon if she's an old hag. So let me know if this idea is hare-brained: Is it too late this year to make a queenless nuc, let them raise a queen, and hope that they will make it through the winter?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Yup is always best to have two colonies at least.

You will be cutting it close to raise a queen by making a queen less nuc but it can be done and just hope it stays warm into Oct. so you get a decent population by then. You can also use frames of honey from the main colony for winter food for them.

 Al


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## Forest (Oct 14, 2010)

I went ahead and did it. 

Keep your fingers crossed for queen cells in a week, and a warm fall this year for me... :icecream:


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## Forest (Oct 14, 2010)

Just an update- the nuc is doing great, they are on to the second 8 frame medium box and the new queen is laying in every cell she can get to. I did add another frame of brood to them three weeks ago to prevent their worker numbers from dipping too low.

Meanwhile, the mother hive is still chugging along. But comparing the two, it is really apparent how "shotgun" the old queen's laying pattern is. Also, the nuc has a lot less drones compared to the number of workers than the mother hive, so I guess queen mom really is an old hag. Pretty sketchy to sell a three year old queen with a package. Well I won't be ordering any more bees from those guys for sure- especially since I can make my own queens now :happyshamelessly taking credit for the bees' work here)...


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## Forest (Oct 14, 2010)

Well, I am glad I did make that split now.

Just checked on the hives, and while the new hive is still alive, it appears that the old queen's colony died some time ago. I had last noticed flight activity about a month or so ago, and they had plenty of honey left, but the cluster is dead and there are tons of dead bees in the front of the hive.

I took the top super full of capped honey off the old hive and put it on the new hive. Hope I didn't kill my new hive, too, by doing it (it is around fifty here, and reading around here I realize now you're supposed to wait till it's in the *high* fifties before opening. Oooops. We'll see how they do. At least they won't starve now.


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