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Category: barren queen

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Not really something I want to write about but something which has to be recorded.

Possibly the worst year I can remember in the last 40.

Having started with 9 colonies I managed to get a reasonable crop from the oil-seed-rape but from this point it all went down-hill.

The weather turned cold and wet throughout the spring and the bees were confined to their hives for long periods. The result was overcrowding and a strong swarming urge. This couldn’t be quelled by adding supers or replacing comb with foundation so it became a continual battle to prevent swarming. This was exacerbated by a period of bad health (mine) which prevented me from doing brood inspections. The result was a massive loss of bees in swarms and a line of hives with virgin queens. The bad weather meant that the queens were unable to fly for weeks and having failed to do so for nearly a month, became barren. This resulted in them becoming drone-layers and the colony gradually dwindling away.

The summary of my losses were

Drone Layers 10

Regicide 3

Mating Flight Loss 7

In a drone-laying situation, you cannot do a paper unite as the colony, to all intent and purposes, has a viable queen and unless and until she is removed she cannot be put together with a colony which has a viable queen. Finding a small virgin queen to remove can be done but it does involve a high level of luck. The only answer is to simply shake out the colony, remove the hive and leave the workers to seek refuge in another hive; again and again.

Then disease struck. I was having to shovel up heaps of dead bees beneath the hive entrances and it was spreading along the hives. Unable to diagnose the problem I called in a seasonal inspector and between us we came to the decision that it could only Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus on a grand scale and for which there was no cure. With existing colonies dwindling down to a few frames of bees I united the two larger ones to make one viable colony and took it to an out-apiary over at Cutler’s Green to get them away from the infection.

The home apiary now looks a poor shadow of its former self.

What's left of a once thriving apiary

The out-apiary at Cutler’s Green was boosted with two ‘cut-outs’. A neighbouring farmer had two old rotten hives sitting on a field headland which had been populated by a swarm and a cast. He wanted them removed so I duly obliged hoping they were in fact swarms from my own hives. No such luck, as I could tell from their personality that they weren’t from my well behaved colonies. They were however bees and I wasn't going to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Having got them on the borage at Cutler’s Green they soon settled down and started producing brood.

Early morning at Mill Hill, Cutler's Green

The borage was a god-send as it may-have-well just saved my honey harvest.

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Although on the surface it looked as if all 10 hives had survived the winter, the first spring inspections revealed otherwise. Two were queenless and two had drone-laying queens. The fifth was so weak it really didn’t deserve to survive.

Result; I have lost half my stock. Only once before in over 40 years have I ever lost colonies in the winter.

What was strange was that queenless hives 5 and 6 continued to forage keenly bringing in both nectar and pollen. The latter is said to indicate a colony being queen-right. Test frames of eggs from another colony were inserted into both. Had they no source of queen pheromones they would have immediately started to draw out emergency queen cells. No such cells were developed which was a weird phenomenon. The colonies continued to dwindle as no eggs were being laid.

They had to be united with another colony but a normal unite wouldn’t work as they thought they already had a queen. Their population was used to supplement the abysmally small, but queenright hive 2. Bit by bit they were moved closer together until they could be shaken out in front of 2. First I caged the queen in hive 2 just as a precaution and shook out the smaller colony and took their hive right away. A few days later I then did the same with the larger. The result is that hive 2 now has sufficient bees to care for brood and the queen is merrily laying away. By the beginning of May they should be large enough to take a super.

The rape came on flower and the first supers have gone onto the five healthy hives. This is where the excitement starts to build and we see the distinct difference between colonies. By the last week of April, hive 3 has three supers and hive 4 is still on its first.

The month has been gloriously sunny and as I gardened each day, the air was full of the gentle hum of the girls hard at work in the greengage branches and down at ground level on the wallflowers.

Of course, continual sunshine meant that the nectar dried up and by week four they were getting a little cross. A solid day’s rain in the last week has hopefully corrected the situation.

However, only half the usual number of bees means half the usual amount of honey so they’ll have to work twice as hard. Maybe the lack of air pollution due to CV lockdown will give them extra impetus.

To those I promised bees this spring, don’t hold your breath.

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Apple weekend at Audley End House was once again a terrific two days. Unfortunately the Sunday weather was appalling and by lunchtime the footfall had reached the staggering total of 150; Saturday’s total was 1500. We had an excellent team of helpers on both days and as usual the observation hive proved a great attraction.

Sally explains foundation and drawing of comb to an enthralled audience

Back in the apiary the number of hives has been united down to the usual over-wintering eight. The last three were each 5-frame nucs, one of which was the observation hived used at Audley End.

Amongst the 15 frames were several with yellow spacers, indicating old frames to be rendered, so these were removed. All the others with bees were given a spray unite. This was probably not necessary as I was uniting three colonies but I thought it best to be cautious. Colony smell must be smothered to unite two colonies but with three colonies they can’t sort out who the intruders are and peacefully accept their new foster sisters.  The spray was a very dilute sugar solution and a drop of oil of lavendre.

One barren queen was removed and the other two left to fight it out as I couldn’t choose which was the better. They are all now in hive 6 and the feeder is fitted.

  1. All hives now have an Ashforth feeder and all the feed is ready. Most of it this winter is recycled honey with just a small amount of sugar solution to help prevent crystallising.Inspections have been reduced in the last part of the season as little could be done. All I needed to do was monitor the varroa drops. This has stayed sufficiently low for treatment to wait until the mid-winter oxalic acid.
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