# Aquarium Bee Hive Failing



## tech.35058

** caution, I do not have an observation hive, my response is based on logic, not experience! **

if you have hive beetles to the point of finding larva, you probably need to reduce te size of the bee cavity, or at least remove frames until the bees are able to police them. if this is less than a a full box to remove, i would replace the combs i removed with foundation-less frames ( yes, some times I am foundation-less) or if already down to one box, use a follower board. where in the hive did you place the donated brood frame? normally I would put it in the center of the lower box, but for an observation hive with no brood nest it might not matter.if they are on the verge of becoming laying workers, , it might take a round or two of donated brood frames, or just treat it like a laying worker hive ( shake out variations)
if the hive is dwindling due to bees "aging out", then it is likely to be LW, even though you do not mention any symptoms. Perhaps the queen failed failed, and the population is dwindling due to virus load ... hard to tell just by looking. like looking at people walking down the street & diagnosing cancer, or hypertension, or something. and, of course, it ould be a high mite load, although your recent treatment, with no brood should have remedied that. 
i am intriged by the design of your hive, it looks like it might be tedious to do a hive inspection, or frame manipulations, and I would wonder about ventilation. But, it looks like a clean design with lots of visibility. hope fully some else will offer better comments than mine. Good luck ! CE


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## D Coates

I do have an OB hive and tech is correct. Shrink the hive size and make sure they've got a queen or are working on one. Not being able to see if they're working on a queens? You're now finding some of the challenges of an OB hive of that design. Don't get me wrong though, all OB hive designs have their respective challenges. The fact that SHB larva have shown up indicates this is a very serious issue you can't ignore.


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## tech.35058

Kind of an afterthought ... making OTS notches on the viewable side of the donated egg frames might persuade the bees to go ahead & make queens on the out side. (and/or covering that view with a light shield?). It would be really cool to watch the queen cell progress & development. CE


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## Briarvalleyapiaries

There is some serious robbing going on now as well. We don't see any honey at all . There was 3-4 frames just a few days ago. I guess the hive is a goner. 

I guess freezing the frames and trying again next year is about all we can do. 

Does freezing the frames take care of the small hive beetles? 

I am also trying to figure out what caused the hive to fail. I am thinking that somehow the hive went queenless and we did not notice it soon enough. I looked at some pictures of the observation hive from middle of May. There was lots and lots of bees than. I should have been more observant with the bee dwindling hive population. Than after the hive was weakened than the small hive beetles came in and made the situation worse. 

I am hoping that whatever this hive has does spread to the rest of my apiary . The observation hive is about 250 feet from the rest of the hives. 

Any thoughts or suggestions?


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## sakhoney

freezing the frames will get the little buggers - but I have a question. The hive is indoors - do you move it outside to work it?


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## Briarvalleyapiaries

Yes, The hose has a valve that we close and than we take the whole hive outside. It is a bit of work so we did not inspect the hive nearly as often. We had thought that we could observe enough from inside that we would not need frequent inspections. 

In hind site, we should have done internal inspections more often. Because the glass boxes are 6 frames wide, you cannot see if the queen laying or see if the hive has eggs or larva. I now suspect that for some reason the queen either died or quit laying a few months back.

I am still trying to figure out what went wrong. I guess an observation hive for second year beekeepers was a bit optimistic. We were told we would learn more by killing our observation hive than being beekeepers for several years.


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## D Coates

Briarvalleyapiaries said:


> I guess an observation hive for second year beekeepers was a bit optimistic. We were told we would learn more by killing our observation hive than being beekeepers for several years.


A single wide frame would have let you know exactly what was going on at all times. Personally, I'd not run an OB hive of your configuration. I've got plenty of experience but OB hives. By their nature they require you to know what's going on at a glance. Frame on frame keeps this from happening unless you're willing to open them up every few days. 6 frames wide, you've got no hope of knowing what's going on, nor learning from it. If you're not reviewing weekly, by the time they start showing noticeable symptoms of a problem you're in deep trouble. Reviewing weekly has it's own serious drawbacks too.

As for killing your OB hive will teach you more than beekeeping several years? Remember who told you that and take that into account for any future recommendations they offer.


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## Briarvalleyapiaries

D Coates said:


> As for killing your OB hive will teach you more than beekeeping several years? Remember who told you that and take that into account for any future recommendations they offer.


Well I read it on Bee Source so it has to be true.  

The actual Quote from Michael Bush 

"I highly recommend any beginner get an observation hive. You'll kill hives in you life, but you'll learn a thousand times more killing an observation hive than any of the ones out in your yard."


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## Michael Bush

>A single wide frame would have let you know exactly what was going on at all times.

That's why I only run them one frame wide.

>"I highly recommend any beginner get an observation hive. You'll kill hives in you life, but you'll learn a thousand times more killing an observation hive than any of the ones out in your yard."

This works much better if you can see what's going on... like one frame wide...


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## Briarvalleyapiaries

Michael Bush said:


> This works much better if you can see what's going on... like one frame wide...


I agree with you now. 

I saw the aquarium bee hive on You Tube and thought that would be a fun one to try.


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## Michael Bush

>I saw the aquarium bee hive on You Tube and thought that would be a fun one to try.

And did you learn anything?


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## Briarvalleyapiaries

My son and I learned a bunch. In the beginning we were able to watch brood hatch. We were able to watch how the bees bring in pollen and nectar and than cap the honey. 

Tonight we took the aquarium hive outside. We were planning on just reclaiming the equipment. 

There were just too many bees to totally give up. It had 3-4 frames of bees with 2 capped queen cells. We ended up putting them in a five frame nuc box. We also added a frame of mixed brood from a strong hive and a frame of nectar and honey. I am planning on feeding the hive and see what happens. 

The hive came from a set of 3 nucs from Georgia in late April. One of hives did OK but superseded in late July . The second hive was down right terrible. The queen laying pattern was terrible and finally quite laying all together. We managed to get another queen but it still barely out of an 8 frame deep. 

I have 3 questions. 


1. What caused the hive to dwindle? Either the queen died or failed for some reason or maybe they had on overload of mites. 

2. What caused the major robbing? I was under the impression that a 16" long tube would take care of the robbing. 

3. 1 week ago , we had placed a frame of eggs and larva and placed it toward the outside of the glass aquarium. During the major robbing event all the eggs and larva disappeared. Do robbing bees eat eggs and larva or did they just die because of lack of care? 

We are already contemplating another observation hive. Most likely with 4-5 medium frames vertically. One major requirement will be that we can see both sides of every frame.


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## Michael Bush

>1. What caused the hive to dwindle? Either the queen died or failed for some reason or maybe they had on overload of mites. 

Many things can contribute. Lack of flow will cause them to not rear brood which can cause them to dwindle, but queenlessness is more likely. They may have swarmed and the new queen didn't make it back.

>2. What caused the major robbing? I was under the impression that a 16" long tube would take care of the robbing. 

The length of the tube is mostly irrelevant. The diameter is more important. Bees need a defensible entrance.

>3. 1 week ago , we had placed a frame of eggs and larva and placed it toward the outside of the glass aquarium. During the major robbing event all the eggs and larva disappeared. Do robbing bees eat eggs and larva or did they just die because of lack of care? 

I've wondered the same thing. I don't think the robbers remove the, though I do think they try to kill the queen. Probably the workers remove them when there aren't enough bees to feed them.


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