Hive Strength Illusions
- KatyAnn Dudley
- Jun 11, 2016
- 5 min read
Updated: May 15, 2020
"I'm calling to announce a momentous occasion... We are now officially moved in." -Helen Parr (The Incredibles)
Interesting fact, cedar wood (the wood planks you see under the hives) are toxic to wax moths, but not to bees. Having them here doesn't really matter all that much, it's mostly during 'wintering' that you have to worry about moths... that or if a colony fully collapses and you don't notice it (usually only a big problem on large agricultural apiaries).
Besides that, Here they are! The paint already came off because of duck tape. Thanks duck tape and Walmart paint. On the right you see Hive Two ( H2 ), on the left Hive One ( H1 ). I know that probably seems backwards, but H1 is closer to where I sit to take notes, so I just marked that as 1.
I first set them up on a Thursday, just left them alone over the weekend and then went back to check in on them on Tuesday the following week. When looking at H1, I was pleased. They had already made great progress on building wax, My mentor had given me a few frames of already established brood, and nectar was coming in from the sugar water and nectar around the area, but I didn't notice much pollen. I found the queen though, alive and healthy on the very center frame. Incredibly convenient. That hardly ever happens, especially as the hives get larger.
When I went into H2, I was surprised to see seven to nine queen cells, at least four of them already capped and a few more almost there. I thought about it wondering if I should get rid of some of them, but I decided to leave them alone. They had hardly even gathered on more than three of the center frames, so it doesn't make any sense for them to swarm... They just got there. I don't know if somehow the queen died, or if they were just unhappy with their current queen and decided to overthrow the hierarchy, but which ever young queen emerges first and the strongest will hunt out the other cells and destroy them herself. I can go back later if I really want to and crush the left over cells, but I think for now I'll just let the bees do their thing.
I fed them sugar water until the following Friday then took it away. This Friday I only went in to check on H1. While I really would have liked to check on H2 because of this queen dilemma, I really need to leave them alone to figure this out. When they're without a queen, or switching/raising a young queen, they can become a bit more agitated. I'd like them to raise the queen in a healthy environment without stress.
In regards to the sugar water:
Scott (my professor) had been watching the hives every morning just to learn more about them and keep an eye on their activity while I wasn't there.
He hypothesized that because H2 had drunk more of the sugar water than H1, this demonstrated higher activity and thus, a stronger hive.
At first I assumed that he might be right, but the difference in sugar water consumption between H2 and H1 was so dramatic when I checked them that next Thursday that I began to suspect that wasn't the case.
It would make sense though that the more food consumed, the more bees that need it, right?
Upon seeing that H2 was building so many queen cells though, I found that hypothesis to be the antithesis of what was happening this time. H2 was creating a lot of queen cells, they were more stressed because of a lost/dead/underperforming queen, so they consumed more of the sugar water besides the fact that the number of mature bees in H2 was far less than H1.
H1 was healthy with a strong queen that I found easily. They had a noticeable difference in the number of adult bees and of the bees that were flying in ( for H1 ), many of them were carrying pollen on their legs, but I didn't see any pollen packs on the legs of bees coming back to H2.
The number of bees flying back to H2 was also far less frequent than in H1. When checking back in that following Friday (yesterday, a week later than the Thursday previously mentioned), H1 had solid areas of nectar and pollen stored away. Some areas with brood were a bit patchy with random nectar stores off to the corner or a few cells in the middle, but nothing too concerning.
Like I mentioned, I left H2 alone, but I decided to take away their sugar water anyway. I honestly would have liked to leave it for them to use for at least until Tuesday when I go back, but from what I saw the last time I was in there they had enough nectar storage to support the queens and themselves, so I decided not to baby it this time. I don't know yet if this was a mistake, but it shouldn't damage them too badly. With the establishment of the new queen, I honestly don't think I should go in there and check on them on Tuesday, but... I'm curious and I want to see how they're doing, so I might try and do a really quick check.
The endless curiosity of bee keepers.
It made me laugh the first time I read a book about bee keeping and one of the sections talked about the insatiable desire that new beeks have to fawn over their new hives, checking on them all the time and just staring at them with a thirst for knowledge... or honey. I've learned a lot from my mentor and from other books I've read since then advising me not to get too hasty in my "check ups" if something like queen rearing is going on. Quick, infrequent check-ins throughout the next few weeks (once establishment of a new queen is discovered) is alright, but try to be patient and leave them alone.
It's harder than you'd think... cause it's like they're your new project, your new pet that you just want to make everything okay, but they're independent women who like to solve their own problems... I totally get that.
When I left on Friday I took the sugar feeders with me and put the real entrance reducer on, so now they have a proper entrance.
As you can see in the picture above, the sugar feeders that were on the left side are gone and the space where the wooden bar was is now replaced by the proper entrance reducer.
On H2 (reminder, H2 is on the left), You can see I reduced their entrance even more with little stones. Since they're the weaker of the two hives, I wanted to do what I could to prevent robbing while they're busy queen rearing.
Even though H1 is busy building their own hive, bees are very opportunistic. They see a chance and if they rally enough support, they take it. The hive next to them is weaker and with some good undercover work and a tiring battle, H1 could potentially take over H2 and steal all their resources, killing off some members of the weaker hive.
Putting stones in H2's entrance reduces the risk of robbing. The closed off entrance makes the vulnerable H2 have a smaller space to defend and fewer robbers can get in.
The understanding of hive growth and robbing activities is important the larger a hive gets. The larger the hive, the more they know they have potential success at robbing, so these entrance reducers are important for keeping smaller hives alive.
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