# Overwintered Hives



## farmnewbie (Apr 18, 2014)

So just a couple of days ago I opened up my hives for the first time this spring. All 3 survived. From outside activity inspection I had 2 strong and one not so strong. The one that was not very active was my strong hive last year that swarmed like 3 times. I was a little surprised to see its low activity. Over the winter we had the 2 deep boxes on the hive and one super full of honey. So this spring when we opened it up the bees were only on the top honey super, and they had some honey and there was some brood but not a lot of bees at all and not a ton of brood. Then as we opened up the deeps they were full of dead bees. Nothing at all except some honey and dead bees in the 2 bottom boxes. So we cleaned out all the dead stuff as good as we could. Left only one deep on and placed the honey super back on top since that is where all their action was. Took a frame from our biggest hive and placed it into the deep for them. Then closed it up. After I had closed everybody up I thought I should have shaken off all the bees into the bottom and placed a queen excluder in so they stop laying in the honey super but I didn't do that. I will maybe do hat today. I also never saw the queen. Is there a chance I just have laying workers? This is something I've never seen before and quite confused as to how some survived but most died.


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## ed/La (Feb 26, 2009)

If they have brood and larva there is a queen. I would put the honey with the bees and brood on the bottom or just leave it on top. I do not think it matters. You could swap it around after they start using the deep. It will take them forever to build up numbers unless they have enough bees to keep brood warm. Give a frame or two of brood with the nurse bees when your donor hives are strong and mild nights. I never kept bees up north so do not know timing. I often use weak hives as queen banks. Pinch the weak queen, wait a few days and give frame of young brood with eggs and bees from best hive or give them a queen cell from a box with several. A good way of getting fresh eggs for queen rearing is to put empty comb in middle of the brood. Mark the frame for easy retrieval ,I use a penny, Remove in 2 or 3 days with any bees that are on it and give to queen less hive, Make sure the queen is not on the donor frame. No shaking the frames with brood. Good luck and have fun


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

First thing you need to do is see if you have a queen in the weak hive. That is the most important thing that needs to be done at this point. Every thing else you do will be wasted if you don't have a queen.

Once you now you have a queen your fine adding some brood from your stronger hives. But use caution depending on how weak the hive is you may not have enough bees to keep the brood warm and they will die of chill brood.

You can add frames complete with nurse bees but I spray mine with a 1:1 mix of vanilla before I add the extra nurse bees. I agree with using a queen excluder at this point if you don't want a queen laying eggs in the honey super.

 Al


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