Two hive comparisons, Update

[lew92]

It is interesting to have two hives again. Because the last time I had two was the result of a split well into the season, I'm finding the comparisons with the current hives to be more "practical" if you will.

My yellow hive has always taken more syrup - at nearly twice the rate of the lilac hive. And yes, I painted them different colors way back when Yesterday I was able to get into the hives for the first time in about 10 days and I was glad that I took an extra box up for each. The yellow hive was occupied top to bottom, with the base box being jam-packed full. Enough that I was looking very closely for swarm cells, but didn't see anything. Whew! They are putting honey on in the 2nd box, all of the larvae is in the first box and there is some capped honey there, too. The activity is going on throughout the frames evenly, also.

The lilac box has probably half the number of bees. Some activity in the 2nd box, but both boxes have activity on one side of the hive rather than throughout the frames. This hive is more aggressive, too, and I was stung 3 times - once because a bee got stuck in a crease on my pants but the other two were attack-type jabs, one on my wrist through my calf-skin glove and the other by a bee that got up on my ankle. Though the ankle one could have gotten pinched too, as I had bungees around the ankle of my pants.

I do know that the more successful hives are more calm in general because they have a better queen. I'm looking for suggestions - re-queen the hive or give it some more time? I'm thinking that if I re-queen I will add a couple of frames of larvae from the calmer hive to help give it a jump-start, too.

[simplynaturalfarm]

My mean hives don't like to be bumped and jostled. Unfortunately they are also the most prolific hives - I added my 5th box yesterday!

I would requeen doing a split. Put old Queen, 3 frames of bees a honey and pollen and empty drawn frames with her.
Old hive will then make a new queen. Yes she's have genetics of old hive but it's easiest and new virgin quiet will mate with other drones . And you'll have the old Queen as a backup.

The other way to get a good queen out of your good hive would require you breaking down the bad hive and removing all young egg and larvae and putting frames with eggs from your good hive in. If you pinch queen, the hive knows within half hour and will draw out cells from eggs from old Queen.

Last week I made a demarara split - took out three frames that had right aged eggs for bees to make Queens, shook bees off in case queen was there, then put a queen excluder on top of second deep brood box. put two empty honey boxes on and then put a box with those three open frames with eggs on top of Honey boxes. frames with eggs go in middle, then drawn comb on outside and bees move up through excluder to tend the larvae. Because they are so far from the queen and her pheromones, The brute on top feels queenless and they draw out cells but have the full resources of the hive 2 drawn for lots of feeding etc. After the cells are capped, I take the frames out ( with bees) and put them in a new hive along with some extra field bees and they will have a new queen in another week or so.

[beelady]

if you like the genetics of the other hive. pinch the queen from the bad hive and then give them some frames of brood.. they will make their own queen with the genetics of the hive you like or requeen with a type you like. carnolian.. italian..etc.. it might not be the color of the hives.. the only way to tell is have several hives going half one color the other half the other color. and see what happens..

[lew92]

I don't think the color of the hives has anything to do with it, it is just my way of telling them apart.

I may try your method of separation to get them to raises a new queen, simplynaturalfarm , if I can't find the queen.

These bees are all from the same place but I know that not all queens are of the same quality. They are a north hardy, hygienic cross.

[lew92]

So even though it has only been five days since my last peek in the hives, I decided to go in again today. Plus, I kept forgetting to put their pollen patties on so that was a good excuse to suit up again.

Honestly, if I hadn't gone in last week, I never would have thought anything was much different between the two hives. The previously "thin" hive has had a population explosion and has brood of all stages. I can't see eggs in either hive, probably because I need new glasses. It is tough to see through the suit, too.

The only odd thing I'm seeing now with the lavender hive is that the bees are concentrating everything to the east half of the hive, rather than spreading out to the other frames. So I switched around a few frames to encourage them to populate the other frames better.

And I got to see the queen in the lavender hive! That always excites me because I rarely see the queens. Just the product of their labor.

[Shawn]

I won't give up on your mean girl hive either. There is sometimes a correlation between aggressive and productive. They may out produce the other one.

[lew92]

Each hive now has 2 supers. Both queens have been busy, though the stronger one has brood in all 3 boxes, while the more aggressive hive is still concentrated in the bottom 2 boxes.

I'm just starting to see drone brood cells and a handful of drones. The aggro girls stung me twice again right through my pants on my thigh. Only about 2 inches apart. Even with prednisone, it became a welt six by 8 inches and was quite painful.

But I am not willing to give up on bees. I gained weight over the winter and can't fit into my tan denim pants that are my beekeeping go to, so have worn lighter weight fabric in a lighter color. Not a good idea.

[lew92]

Last night I was hand pulling weeds near the aggro hive, being very careful to make sure I wasn't pulling anything with a bee on it, not bumping the hive, etc.

All of a sudden, I had about 20 bees furiously buzzing around my head so I started walking away and got stung on my lower back. Which made me jump, of course. Another stung me through my glove on my forefinger. I'm walking away as quickly as I can and trying to stay calm and "shoo" the bees away and I got stung on the back of my knee. That one was direct contact, as I was wearing cropped pants.

Before they quit, two stung just below my ankle bone, through my socks. That is the most painful, as there is very little padding.

That hive doesn't seem to have as many bees as it used to (I haven't gone in for about 2 1/2 weeks) and I'm honestly hoping that they swarmed, taking the queen with them.

I would remove queen cell and switch out frames with brood on them so they would raise a queen descended from the other hive. Since that group is so mellow.

I'm sure tired of taking prednisone!

[lew92]

Over the past three weeks, I have gone into the hives on a weekly basis. And I've been taking capped honey. The hives are booming, as the hay field just six feet away is covered in clover. The honey is so light in color and has magnificent flavor.

On Monday, I took 13 frames all together from the two hives, 7 from the aggro hive (which was nice to me this time) and 6 from the calmer hive. Funny thing is, the "calm" bees stung me 5 times before I was done working. I know it is because the heat and humidity have them more angry than usual.

Both hives are so full, I decided to get another box for each hive plus more empty frames. The store was out of medium boxes, but they had the frames so I bought wood to make boxes. I got one assembled and took the one remaining empty box I had, filled with 9 frames of foundation, and put it on the aggro hive, which has more bees and is being more productive, as Shawn predicted.

I put on a queen excluder to keep the top super free of brood. When I was in the hives, I took the frames of honey from different boxes and I put some empty frames in each box. I also switched around frames so that the ones with a lot of brood on them are lower in the hive. My way of tricking the bees into thinking they have more space than they do and try to keep them from swarming.

So far, so good.

[Shawn]

Wonderful that you're getting some honey off. We're seeing a dearth of nectar here, which makes them more irritable. I'm excited for you that you're getting to compare and see what the differences are and that they are producing well for you!!

[lew92]

I did a mite count last weekend (July 19) and found nothing. I am very impressed with these bees!

[Shawn]

How did you do your mite count? I haven't done one for a long time...

[lew92]

I use a pint jar with a tablespoon of powdered sugar in it and cut a piece of plastic cross stitch grid to fit in a ring for the top. Put about 1/4 cup of bees into the jar, lid it, then shake for one minute.

Sprinkle the powdered sugar onto a clean, white surface. Any mites should be easy to see.

Dump the bees, sugar and all, near the hive so they can get help clearing up.

They'll be mad, but not able to fly.