New bee hive question

[jackelope]

Hi guys... I've got a honey bee question for you experienced folks.
We have a new hive that we put a package of bees in last week. So far, so good. What I'm wondering is if someone can give me a straight answer as far as treating for the varroa mites. I don't see any mites on the bottom board in the hive but am assuming they will show up at some point. Is it logical to put the HopGuard strip in the hive at this point or is it pretty much only done when the mites appear in the sampling? I've read numerous places and don't see anyone say to do this, but they don't say not to either. Just seems like maybe a proactive approach would be better?
Thank you in advance.

[jasnt]

Tagging

[heronblu]

Here is my advice for what it's worth. I never treat for mites with anything but powdered sugar. My hive setup is a bit unorthodox as I have all top bar hives. The bees do have mites but with powdered sugar treatments about three times a year they drop a bunch and seem to manage the rest just fine on their own. Just FYI I've got eight healthy hives.

[jackelope]

Here is my advice for what it's worth. I never treat for mites with anything but powdered sugar. My hive setup is a bit unorthodox as I have all top bar hives. The bees do have mites but with powdered sugar treatments about three times a year they drop a bunch and seem to manage the rest just fine on their own. Just FYI I've got eight healthy hives.

ok, I've read some towards that approach as well. Does the sugar kill them or just make them fall off? I'm not familiar with a top bar hive, but in a traditional hive, do you need the screen to separate them from the rest of the hive when they do fall off? As far as the powdered sugar thing goes,  I've read to use that for sampling, I guess I just haven't read far enough to see info about treating them with it.
Thanks!

[nalley112]

use powdered sugar then clean it after they fall.. just makes it look better when the hive is cleaned..you can put the strip in but powder would be my first choice.. we do strips and powder here in the valley.. my uncle and cousin run about 7000 hives and i help out in the spring and fall..

[jackelope]

Do you treat for them even if they're not there?

[skinzner]

I barely ever see mites  on my removable bottom boards but am always surprised how many drop when i treat with an oxallic acid vaporizer. I do several treatments late summer over a 2-3 week period after i pull the supers off.this is only my third year but the vaporizer is the preferred choice for me and a few of my beekeeping buddies after trying a few other options.

[Humptulips]

I don't know what your eyes are like but I cannot see mites on the bees or on the bottom board. The only time I can see them is on brood. Break open a drone cell where you have black on white and I can see them. Otherwise it ain't happening for me. I think you just have to assume every colony has varroa.
If you are going to treat I see no problem in treating a package. After all they are not making surplus.
Personally I have not treated for quite a few years. I have had problems with swarm survival the last two years as have some other beeks I know. They have been going down hill, becoming queen less and dying in the fall. I am planning on treating the swarms as I get them. I'm thinking treatment at the same time as a break in the brood cycle might solve my problems with swarm survival.

[nalley112]

Yes we treat for mites even if not there.. Better safe than sorry is what my uncle and cousin say.. They would rather spend the money on keeping them up than trying to catch up and fix them back up..

[quadrafire]

Thread Jack

I'll bet I killed off half a hive worth of bees this weekend traveling I-90. They are all over my windshield. I was just east of Moses Lake, looking over and admiring all the hives about 50 yrds off the freeway when splat.......... Tons of bees heading from the fields on the south side of the hwy to the hives on the north side.
With all the freeway travel it has got to put a dent in those hive numbes. no???

Maybe putting up some bee crossing signs would be helpful 

[go4itlab]

Treat in the fall, Practice is lower number of bees the greater number of mites. Your hive should be growing in numbers and healthy enough to not need treatment at this time. I use certified organic strips" Mite Away Quick-Strips". After I have harvested my share of the honey and in the fall ( don't forget to leave plenty of full trays behind for you hive to survive the winter). They say its safe for human consumption still after you treat but......You will see a slight die off but not to worry.

[Idabooner]

The 6th of May I treated 3 strong hives, all double brood boxes, with "Mite A Way Quick Strips".  I followed the directions to the T.  The slight die off they tell you will happen got the queens in two hives.  I had to buy two new replacement queens.  There is just now starting to have capped brood in those two hives.  6 weeks without any brood hatching will really set those two hives back, there won't be any honey to harvest this year.  Never again will I use quick strips. 

[jackelope]

No sign of excessive mites for us yet. I am a little concerned. The neighbors got pissed because I think a new hatch made an orientation flight a week or so ago and the neighbors saw them and thought it was a swarm. They don't like the idea of the bees being there. We might have to try and move the hive. Not sure how that will go. 2 deep boxes now and waiting for the time to put a super on it.

[go4itlab]

Idabooner, That sucks I had great results with mine last fall. All 4 wintered great and are alive and very healthy. I've been considering trying out tea tree oil or other essential oils out this summer if I see any spike in mites.

[JimmyHoffa]

Today/tomorrow (solstice) should be the maximum size of your brood.  The worker populations should still build for a bit, but their replacements will be less and less. 

[jackelope]

Well, more trouble in paradise. My family was out of town since Thursday and my friends where we keep the hive are also out of town. Got off the plane last night to a barrage of text messages and phone calls. It seems one of the neighbors found a swarm in a tree. They called my friends who won't be back for a week to tell them they think our bees swarmed. Then they called me. We have a local beekeeper who they called who went and caught the swarm and put them in a box. Then he went over and checked our hive. He's pretty sure our hive split and half of them left. I guess that means we let another queen hatch. Really, we should have done some more learning on this before diving in. I think what we should be doing is monitoring for queen cells and getting rid of them when they appear? Uggg... I guess it's a sign of a strong hive but we're not in a position for another hive. We told the beekeeper he could keep our split. Our hive still has plenty of bees he says. I'm going to go check it out tonight. I thought it was uncommon for a new package to swarm in the first year. Maybe a split is different.

[jasnt]

Our new hive split too but we had another hive. Then 2 days later another swarm showed up so we bought one and now have 3

[trophyhunt]

Cool hobby Josh, hope it works out.  So how much honey do you expect to get? Do you just put it in a jar and it's ready?   

[Widgeondeke]

Lucky you          

  no wonder you weren't very talkative last night

[jackelope]

Cool hobby Josh, hope it works out.  So how much honey do you expect to get? Do you just put it in a jar and it's ready?   

Really I don't know. I don't expect any till next spring, but at the rate they're building out, maybe sooner.
I think if a medium frame full of honey weighs 5 pounds, maybe 30 pounds or so? Really I don't have a clue.

[Netminder01]

Cool hobby Josh, hope it works out.  So how much honey do you expect to get? Do you just put it in a jar and it's ready?   

Really I don't know. I don't expect any till next spring, but at the rate they're building out, maybe sooner.
I think if a medium frame full of honey weighs 5 pounds, maybe 30 pounds or so? Really I don't have a clue.

Time lapse video..... chronicle the whole thing especially the neighbors spinning up.  ;-)

[go4itlab]

Same thing happened to me a few years back. Make sure you go thru the whole hive. I didn't thinking, well they swarmed so thats thats and ended up with a secondary swarm. They can have multiple queen cells and if the new queen doesn't kill them all thats what happened. I was lucky enough to catch both but my honey yield suffered. Due to not having enough drawn out comb to put in the swam boxes, as well as just the loss of number off the original.

[Humptulips]

Digging through and cutting queen cells is a little too labor intensive for me. I can't believe many would do it. I just try and give them plenty of room up until July and catch swarms when I can.
Hasn't been many swarms this year for me. Only one at home and 1 or 2 at my other apiary. Caught 13 in bait hives plus the one caught at home puts me at 28 now.

[jackelope]

They've got plenty of room. I got into the hive tonight. I'm going to post some pics in hopes that some of you guys in the know will help me ID what's going on. I think that only a couple of the pictures will relate to the swarm. But the others are interesting to talk about anyway.

Swarm cells? Bottom right of the frame, and then a close up.

[jackelope]

What's going on here? And what should I do about it??

[jackelope]

A couple different frames pulled for inspection.

[DaveMonti]

I think the larger "growth" looking bit of comb is just where the bees built it out that way.  I used to find these on occasion, and they would break open when I pulled the frame out.  It would expose the larva, just like your pictures.  You can probably just leave it, but I think I used to just shave them off down to the foundation if possible, hope that the bees don't continue to build across frames.  That can make them a bear to pull out! 

The cells at the bottom of the frame look kind of small for queen cells.  Take a look at some pictures on the internet.  Queen cells are usually the size of a peanut, with similar texture. 

Is that a queen in the upper right of the close up shot of the cells at the bottom of the frame?  It's a bigger bee than the others, but it just might be the image.

It's been quite a while since I've been in a hive, so there may be plenty of others that can chime in with better wisdom!

[Humptulips]

First is queen cells. I don't see any larvae anywhere and looks like the tail end of mature brood hatching. I would say your bees were without a mated queen and are or were raising a queen. Possibly old queen gone with swarm and young queen not laying yet. I would not cut those queen cells unless I saw a queen.
Second is burr comb, drone cells. Bees like a few drone cells especially when they are raising queens and your new comb is all worker cells. They mostly find a place for some drone comb so not unusual.

The queen cells look small alright but the one on the right is for sure a queen cell. Almost look like emergency queen cells but maybe not.

[go4itlab]

I agree with Humptulips  sound advice.

[jackelope]

Thanks guys.

[Idabooner]

There is very little brood and it appears to be  hatching. It takes 21 days from egg to hatch for worker bees, so it looks like you have not had a good Queen for 18-20 days.  Possibly a bad Queen or she got injured some way.  I don't think that swarm came from your hive, if it had you would have lots of capped brood.   If there is a new un-mated Queen in there it will be about 25-30 days before any new brood hatches.  If you buy a new Queen it will be 3 days to introduce her, and a day or two before she starts laying.   If you wind up with two Queens they will fight to death of one or both.
You could watch that Queen cell for awhile and hope it was started from a good larva and hatched a good Queen and that she come back from her mating flight.  All the indecision's   is what makes raising bees so much fun.  Good luck and keep us up to date.

[jackelope]

There is very little brood and it appears to be  hatching. It takes 21 days from egg to hatch for worker bees, so it looks like you have not had a good Queen for 18-20 days.  Possibly a bad Queen or she got injured some way.  I don't think that swarm came from your hive, if it had you would have lots of capped brood.   If there is a new un-mated Queen in there it will be about 25-30 days before any new brood hatches.  If you buy a new Queen it will be 3 days to introduce her, and a day or two before she starts laying.   If you wind up with two Queens they will fight to death of one or both.
You could watch that Queen cell for awhile and hope it was started from a good larva and hatched a good Queen and that she come back from her mating flight.  All the indecision's   is what makes raising bees so much fun.  Good luck and keep us up to date.

I think the decision is to leave it alone for a week and then recheck for new eggs and/or a new queen next week.

I've had a couple people think it was our bees that swarmed, and a couple others say it's not our bees. Not sure if we'll be able to tell unless we see our marked queen in the new hive that the beek that caught them has. We're not able to get over to his place till early next week but he said he'd hang on to them for us till then. We are thinking about starting a 2nd hive now after we've had a couple days to think about it.

Fingers crossed. If there was ever anything that reinforced whether or not I have A.D.D., this is it. All the info is mind blowing. The biggest problem I have is how similar everything looks. I need an owner's manual for these creatures!!