New colony - The Dolphins!

Well, we moved the new bees into their hive on Thurs 23rd June. Very difficult as they had built new comb up in the corner of the square box they were in! We tried cutting this off and sewing it to top bars, but it soon fell off and all we could do was leave it propped up on the bottom of the hive. They did have a few other combs that fit in OK. It's a very small colony, as it's just a caste. We saw the queen who seemed very young and healthy. We both looked in over the next few days and they appeared alright. The brood on the comb was still being looked after and the bees were flying well. Had a bit of a problem with wasps, but the bees appeared to be fending them off well. We had left them with only one entrance hole. Also put up a wasp trap in the tree behind the hive. Decided to call them The Dolphins after Paula who gave them to us.
They seemed to have enough supplies for the amount of bees, but after talking to Phil on Wednesday this week, decided to offer them some feed. He had read some research that showed that syrup made with nettle tea increased the brood laying by 30%. Gave them 250gms sugar in 250mls nettle tea.
The Lizards are doing well and flying out in vast numbers. We may form a nucleus from them this weekend, on the Intermediate Natural Beekeeping course that Phil is running here.

Getting ready to put The Dolphins in their hive 'helped' by Alby and Rusty

Sunday 19th June 2011

Lots has happened in past few weeks. Waited and waited for signs of a new queen in the Lizard hive. They did start bringing in some pollen, but then their activity reduced quite a lot. Jim investigated and was quite worried about them. The largest, still capped, queen cell was there, so must have died, because it should have hatched several days before. The others had opened, but he couldn't see a queen and also thought they were being robbed from the Nectans. He reduced the entrance to one hole, to try and prevent further robbing. We suspected that, if there was a queen, she might have failed on her virgin flight, or got eaten by one of the swallows who had been swooping over the hives. We sought advice from Phil who thought it was worth trying again, by introducing another comb, with new eggs in, from the Nectans, so they could raise another queen. I went to do the deed on Tues, but was shocked by what I found.
At first all looked good, with many bees crowding around the entrance. I watched for a while and they seemed to be behaving oddly and certainly no pollen was coming in. There seemed to be quite a lot of scuffles breaking out and the sound of the hive was 'not content', is the only way I can think of describing it. Also, it seemed that most of the bees were coming from the other hive.
The Nectans were very contentedly bringing in nectar and pollen, or flying off to the Lizard hive.
I opened up and went through the whole hive. There was absolutely no brood and very little honey. I found no stored pollen. All the combs were very light and there was no building going on. The bees all seemed to be taking the honey that was left and flying away with it. There were a lot of drones too.
I was 99% sure most of the bees I saw were from the Nectans' hive and were robbing, despite us cutting the entrance down to one hole. I didn't think we really had a colony left. It really felt pointless to go ahead with moving comb over, as I thought there was virtually nothing to feed them with, even if there were any nurse bees left. I emailed Jim & Phil and followed up with a phone call to Phil. Decided, between us, to reunite the hives & I went ahead with this on Wednesday, on my own, as Jim was away with work. I did it by putting most of the combs into the Nectans' hive at one end. Left them alone overnight and went back on Thurs to remove a few more of the combs. The bees were not best pleased about this and became pretty angry. Just took 2 and put these in the other hive, which is now empty of course, along with the other combs I managed to leave behind the day before.
One bit of really good news is that I had phoned Paula, who had been on the first Top Bar Hive course, because she had offered us a swarm, from her own bees, that she doesn't need. She brought these to us on Friday and they are now, at the top of our field, in her nucleus box. We will move them into their new home sometime over the next few days. We decided to leave them at the top of the field to, hopefully, prevent them from being robbed.
So it looks like we are back up to 2 hives, again. We will have to decide what we are going to do about names. Really, the Nectans should go back to being called The Lizards, because they are now the original, reunited, Lizard colony.

Sunday 22nd May 2011

Bees flying from both hives, more from The Nectans.
Nectan's bees bringing in pollen, which indicates the presence of the queen, as they only do that when there are larvae to feed. As it's 15 days since the split, there wouldn't be any larvae if there was no queen, as the cells are capped after 9 days.
No pollen coming into The Lizards as they are waiting for their new queen, if they have one, to mate.

Removed the varroa tray from The Lizards. Counted 12 varroa in 16 days, which averages as less than one a day - great. Decided it's not worth doing another count on The Nectans, they should be about the same as they were the same colony 15 days ago.

Friday 20th June 2011

Fed Nectans again on Tuesday. Signs of dysentery noticed by Jim on Wednesday and weather much better, so decided to stop feeding.
This is what Jim said in an email yesterday:

"Checked the bees at about 9am this morning, it's a beautiful day (potential swarm).

Good news - the Lizards (who have the queen cell) are building.  Little activity outside the hive, but they have few flying bees, so that would be right.

The Nectans seem much happier they are also building.  Much activity outside the hive

I popped into your garage and put another couple of bars in both hives.

Took out the feed from the Nectans (all gone).

I'll keep a close eye on them whilst we have good weather."

Went to check them this morning with Mick. Temp 19. Wanted to have a quick look at the queen cell, so I could 'get my eye in'. Lifted the bar where Jim said it was and was very surprised to see 4-5 queen cells. There was the very large one at the bottom, that Jim had seen, covered in bees. Then 2-3 badly formed smaller ones. Then we were amazed to see that there was one in the mid RH section which looked like it had had a queen already emerged. I think this was where I saw the lumpy structure a few days after the split. We shut the hive back up quickly and left them alone. Lots of drones looking very interested, so hopefully, whichever queen wins the probable fight, she'll mate successfully.

Queen cell to the right of the middle, queen possibly emerged. Lots of drones visible.

Same cell visible with 2 smaller cells to left of it.

Workers very interested, looking into queen cell.

Workers all over large queen cell at bottom of comb.

Tues 17th May 2011

A lot has happened over past couple of days.
We carried on feeding the Nectans until Fri evening, by which time they had consumed almost 2 kgs sugar as 1:1 syrup.
I wasn't feeling too good on Sunday, when we had planned to have another look, so Jim inspected the hives on his own.
In The Lizards he saw a well formed, capped, queen cell which Mick and I must have missed in our quick inspection on Fri. He also observed that the bees seemed to be clustering in a ball and he was worried that they might be preparing to swarm. The bees were very active and bringing in pollen.
The Nectans, however were not so good. This is what he said:
"The new colony (Nectans) have a huge number of discarded drone larvae both inside and outside the hive, 100+.  Inside the combs are light in weight and have little recent activity, virtually no stores.  There is a comb of sealed brood and  evidence of some (not many) larvae at varying stages.  No eggs.  Searched long and hard for a queen, but couldn't see her.  Not too many bees in this hive so I'm pretty sure I would have see her.  This hive has one or two bees returning with pollen every 4-5 mins, not active.  Many drones hanging around without trying to get in."
We discussed our options and wondered if we should either move the queen cell, or the queen (if we could find her) to the Nectans. We were tending to think that the queen was possibly in the Lizard hive and that the cell was a swarm cell, not a replacement. At that point we were thinking that, as the cell was capped, it had probably been in the making since before the split. We were also worried that the Lizards might have been robbing the Nectans. We decided that we needed to get advice from Phil. Jim emailed him and this was part of his reply:
"Sounds like you need to fortify the Nectans from the Lizards. A simple way to do this would be to swap the hives over (not on your own!) so the flying bees reinforce the other one."
We were a bit thrown by this, until we thought it through, logically:
1)  We realised that the queen cell could well be capped and be an emergency cell in response to the split. Queen cells are capped on the 8th day, the split was done 8 days ago and the egg would have been 1-2 days old then.
2) As there were uncapped larvae, at various stages in the Nectans, this indicates that the queen is probably there, as cells are usually capped on day 9 when the larvae is fully formed.
3) If we swop the hives, the flying bees from the Lizards' hive should go to the Nectans' hive. This would mean they would start bringing in supplies there instead and also would not be robbing them. As the Lizards have loads of supplies, they would be ok for a while and also, as they are strong, they would probably be able to ward off a bid to rob them.
4) If the flying bees mostly decamp to the Nectans' hive, the Lizards would probably have insufficient flying bees to swarm, if that was what they were planning.
So last night at 9.15 we did the swop and also gave the Nectans another feed of 300gms sugar as 1:1 syrup. Put corks in entrances to do the swop and Jim removed these this morning.
It's been very cool the last 2 days and when Mick went down at about 10 this morning there were just a few, slightly confused looking, bees flying around both entrances.
Keep your fingers crossed!

Friday 13th May 2011

Inspected Lizards' hive on Friday with Mick helping, as Jim away at the moment. Temp only just OK, so had to be quick. The thing we saw on Tues had gone, so it couldn't have been a queen cell, however I saw a lumpy structure in the middle of a comb which was different to and much bigger than a drone cell. I think it might have been an emergency queen cell under construction. Couldn't see any new brood. They were still building comb, so we put in another bar.
Then went to the Nectans' hive. Started looking at bars, but then it began spitting with rain and the temp dropped. Stopped and closed them up after 2 bars, so didn't see much. They have been taking 300gms sugar in 300mls water every day still. As they now have flying bees bringing in pollen, decided to give them some feed tonight and then stop. They will have had almost 2 kgs sugar in total.
Still erring on the side of thinking it's the Lizards that are queenless and hoping that the structure they are building is a queen cell. Hope to have a look at the Nectans over the weekend with Jim.

Tues 10th May '11 We think we were wrong!

Results of sound test Phil did were inconclusive.
Inspected Nectans' hive with Jim today at 1pm. Bees flying around the hive quite a lot, but don't seem to be flying away to gather supplies yet. All the feed gone again, we had given them 2 more jars last night. So they have taken 5 jars now, that's 750gms sugar in 2 days. Will give them some more tonight.
Began to look at bars most likely to have brood on and found some new looking brood. Decided they may have the queen after all, so looked in the Lizards' hive instead.
Bees building very busily on new bars and bars from Buckfast colony. Saw what we think may be a very new queen cell. Took pictures, but they didn't come out very well. Too many bees in the way. Decided to leave them alone and check again in 2 -3 days. There may well be more queen cells, but we didn't want to risk chilling whatever it was we saw.

   

Possible queen cell in Lizard hive.