Comment

Comment by Paul McCarty on November 29, 2012 at 1:35pm

How's everyone's bees doing so far during this "Winter"? Sometimes it is actually harder on them if it stays warm because they burn through their food supply. Everyone should be peeking in on them on the warmer days just to see how the food supply is holding up - especially you guys who did not give them "emergency feed".

I broke down and dumped several bags of sugar in each of my hives last week just in case. I had been feeding them strictly candy bricks and candy frames, but got a bit behind. I HATE cleaning out sugar in the Spring.

 

My hives are still pretty heavy on the honey, and hopefully they stay that way if they have candy/sugar to munch on. I'll harvest what's left of the honey in late Winter. Maples/Cottonwoods should be blooming here in late January or early Feb. Counting down the days...

Comment by Paul McCarty on October 31, 2012 at 9:22pm

Come to think of I, I really had more like 6 laying worker hives I had to deal with.

Comment by Paul McCarty on October 31, 2012 at 9:20pm

Just remember, a lot of dealing with situations such as this involves a calculated risk. There is always a danger it will not work, even feeding frames of open brood - which works, but seriously robs your other hives of strength. You could also just keep giving them queen cells above an excluder and hope it takes, but who has that many QC's.

Comment by Paul McCarty on October 31, 2012 at 9:14pm

I had 4 laying worker hives this year. I get them in my nucs all the time. I don't always shake them out. Most of the time just doing a newspaper combine with a queen-right nuc will fix it all up. Really all you have to do in most cases is put in three brood frames with a queen in the middle and normally they will straighten out.

Shaking out only works for me if I have a queen-right hive sitting in place of the old - and that is hazardous to the queen in that hive due to the bum-rush of bees.

I have lately been using a re-queening frame - like the one you get from brushy mountain. Works like a charm. Takes about a week and a half before you can let her out though.

You have to be careful shaking out hives, because in many cases there is a newly laying queen in them. They lay over and over in the same cells and look very similar to a laying worker hive. I get them doing that all the time. The only way to tell is to leave them be for a little while and see what happens.

A lot of my trap-outs go laying worker.

Comment by Rob Shepler on October 31, 2012 at 5:59pm

I have one in the same shape!

Question for our experts.......Is it necessary to shake out the bees to isolate a laying worker when doing a combine? Will the pheromones of the new queen be enough to overcome the laying worker? Anybody had experience with it?

Thanks!

Comment by James H DAWDY on October 31, 2012 at 4:34pm

Checked the hive I split- lots of drones.  Hmmm.  Bad egg pattern.  No queen, but one queen cell.  Uh oh.  Emergency queen didn't make it, and now I have a laying worker.  Sigh.  Shook out.  Will newspaper combine, because I think it's too late in the year to get a queen hatched and mated.

Comment by Rob Shepler on October 23, 2012 at 7:27am

Cool article.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/pictures/121011-blu...

Comment by Paul McCarty on October 15, 2012 at 8:16pm

Ooooh, pretty late in the season. Poor bees! Where are they located and when are you talking about doing it?

Comment by Rob Shepler on October 15, 2012 at 8:14pm

The bees that I got from Hobbs. Got a lead on a double wide that is going to be moved soon, the bees must go, want to help?

Comment by Paul McCarty on October 15, 2012 at 8:12pm

They normally eat my comb too. You are also lucky as far as that goes. I bet you still have a queen.

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