# 10 year old hives never been opened



## ToeOfDog (Sep 25, 2013)

Welcome to the forum.

Please help me understand and clarify a few things. Your buddy did nothing to the bees except harvest for 10 years. That implies that he never treated for mites. That the bees have adopted and become naturally resistant to mites. You have access to treatment free bees. Why would you want to gas them with OAV??

Treat the microbe population in those old brood combs as a valued resource until they have transferred to the new comb. 

It takes about 6 hours to straighten out a 6 year old hive that had never been touched and replace the wooden ware.


----------



## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

This leads to quite the dilemma. As ToeOfDog said this could be a rare opportunity to cultivate hardy survivor stock. However we really have no verification they these bees are survivors. as they could well have died out annually and the hive been repopulated by early swarms. Combine that with the fact that the bees produce some years and not others, along with only 2 gallon harvest would make me think these bees have been struggling for years, Maybe mites maybe not. In any event I would not be real anxious to begin treatment on bees that may have survivor or Mite resistance traits. I would want to monitor them to be sure before making any judgments. 
My next consideration would be my friendship with the fellow beekeeper. He has or at least believes he has had the same bees for 10 years in a hive that has had no attention what so ever. You as a new beekeeper come along and try to build him a better mousetrap. What if his bees then do not survive the winter? Imagine who is then going to be the jerk! Although he has not cared for the bees and is obviously not a beekeeper who is extremely involved with them. It often goes that people find unimportant things important when they are lost because of someone else's action or inaction. 
I would think it over well before approaching the individual. Then I would explain all the possibilities to him both pro and com!


----------



## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

Robere, you will get a variety of opinions about what to do. Some would consider that you have two valuable colonies and you are likely to accidentally kill a queen or two and lose this line. Production can be highly variable from year to year, and you should not judge these two colonies based on a single year's production. Your friend may have been harvesting in previous years, and this may be typical. It sounds like you want to intensively manage bees. You may want to take a split or two off of these colonies and manage away on the splits and allow these biological treasures to survive.


----------



## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

I'll throw in a curve ball, someone has to do it. 

The critical unknown answer at this time is ... have the hives been repopulated every year or two with swarms, or are they surviving mite tolerant bees?

Why not just do a series of OAV now? If they are mite tolerant stock, I don't think their genetics will have changed by next spring. If they are just ordinary bees from a swarm that took up residence, the treatments will keep them alive through the winter. 

Next year in the spring the hives can be broken down (with live bees) and then their tolerance to mites can be evaluated by doing testing throughout the season. The main thing is to have live bees next year to work with.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

Thanks for the opinions. I was of the opinion these bee's have died off maybe several times and repopulated. I just can't see the same hive surviving all these years. As long as they see bees coming in and out, no matter how few, they're probably not concerned. One hive is way off at the ends of a field in the woods so I;m sure a year will go buy and they'll never even look at it. It has concerned me a bit about taking over and then them dying, but I'd have to explain to them that I'm sure they've died several times. I know one time they tried to catch a swarm from one of them.
The mite issue that was brought up is one I wasn't aware of. Mite resistant. Interesting. So even if I could take a sample and I found a lot of mites or saw signs of deformed bee's that doesn't mean they should be treated correct?
Toeofdog. What do you mean by " Treat the microbe population in those old brood combs as a valued resource until they have transferred to the new comb".? I'm assuming you mean by access to treatment free bee's, I should make a split?This would be done after they transferred?
One other thing I was thinking of doing was putting entrance reducers on to at least try to prevent robbing this fall.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

Tenbears said:


> This leads to quite the dilemma. As ToeOfDog said this could be a rare opportunity to cultivate hardy survivor stock. However we really have no verification they these bees are survivors. as they could well have died out annually and the hive been repopulated by early swarms. Combine that with the fact that the bees produce some years and not others, along with only 2 gallon harvest would make me think these bees have been struggling for years, Maybe mites maybe not. In any event I would not be real anxious to begin treatment on bees that may have survivor or Mite resistance traits. I would want to monitor them to be sure before making any judgments.
> My next consideration would be my friendship with the fellow beekeeper. He has or at least believes he has had the same bees for 10 years in a hive that has had no attention what so ever. You as a new beekeeper come along and try to build him a better mousetrap. What if his bees then do not survive the winter? Imagine who is then going to be the jerk! Although he has not cared for the bees and is obviously not a beekeeper who is extremely involved with them. It often goes that people find unimportant things important when they are lost because of someone else's action or inaction.
> I would think it over well before approaching the individual. Then I would explain all the possibilities to him both pro and com!


I understand and have considered this. I would discuss it with them and let them know the pros and cons. I certainly have a concern of "screwing it up" being a rookie.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

Mike Gillmore said:


> I'll throw in a curve ball, someone has to do it.
> 
> The critical unknown answer at this time is ... have the hives been repopulated every year or two with swarms, or are they surviving mite tolerant bees?
> 
> ...


Thanks Mike. Just what I need. A curve ball. So how would I go about testing. If the mites are there next year, what does that tell me? If the bee's are resistant to mites,how does that work? Will the mites still not cause bee's to come out deformed? What part can they be resistant to?
I'm sure these hives are so propalized there would be no way to get them apart without breaking the frames to do a split. This bee keeping stuff is so confusing.


----------



## sarahsbees (Apr 20, 2016)

I'll add my two cents abut the mites. Mites are transmittable to one hive to another. So if I'm understanding, mite-resistant bees mean the bees in this one hive are safe. But what about bees in other hives? So it's a bit irresponsible to think, "my bees are safe so I'm alright" because if the hive gets robbed or there's drift or any of the other ways mites get transferred (those are the two I know about, but seeing as how fast they spread once they're introduced to an area, I imagine there are others) then someone else's bees very much are not safe!

The other issue I'm not understanding is the "I know the hives won't come apart." By this you mean you don't think you'll be able to get into the bottom box? How come? I'm new at this and all my equipment is new and I've never gone more than three weeks between inspections, so I honestly have no idea what a ten-year untouched hive looks like. But maybe double check by trying to pry it apart with a hive tool or something. Make sure you have a problem before getting too dedicated to solutions to it!

Other than that, I guess your plan of putting boxes on top and having the bees move into them makes sense in theory. I guess close up the bottom entrance, have a top entrance, and put in a bee escape? 

Good luck! Take pics. I'm sure I'm not the only one curious about what a ten year unopened hive looks like!! If the guy who owns them shows some resistance, maybe promise him a honey supply as payment.


EDIT: Wait, I think I'm misunderstanding "mite resistance." I don't know if y'all mean there are mites but the bees aren't affected by them or that the bees can control the mites in their own hive and can keep a low mite population without treatment.

OTHER EDIT: Ok, just looked up mite resistance and it looks like it means the bees are good at fighting off mites, not that they're good at enduring an ongoing mite infestation and living with lots of mites. I'll leave my mistake/learning process up there in case anyone else is new to the term. I would still test for them (if you want to leave the bottom hive undisturbed, just test the split you make) just to be sure. And then if you do find a high mite count, then get some treatment into the undisturbed hive.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

sarahsbees said:


> I'll add my two cents abut the mites. Mites are transmittable to one hive to another. So if I'm understanding, mite-resistant bees mean the bees in this one hive are safe. But what about bees in other hives? So it's a bit irresponsible to think, "my bees are safe so I'm alright" because if the hive gets robbed or there's drift or any of the other ways mites get transferred (those are the two I know about, but seeing as how fast they spread once they're introduced to an area, I imagine there are others) then someone else's bees very much are not safe!
> 
> The other issue I'm not understanding is the "I know the hives won't come apart." By this you mean you don't think you'll be able to get into the bottom box? How come? I'm new at this and all my equipment is new and I've never gone more than three weeks between inspections, so I honestly have no idea what a ten-year untouched hive looks like. But maybe double check by trying to pry it apart with a hive tool or something. Make sure you have a problem before getting too dedicated to solutions to it!
> 
> ...


Maybe I should have made it clear on the hives not coming apart. I feel I can get the boxes apart provided they aren't rotting. They look to be in good shape. I'm saying if I make a split, I'd have to take out frames. The frames are bound to be so propolized that I'm sure most will break or be very difficult to get out.
After reading some of the responses, the splits make more sense. I could take a split from each hive. I take one and they take one. I leave the "wild bee's" as they are and let them do what they've done for 10 years. I'll have to discuss the options with them.


----------



## sarahsbees (Apr 20, 2016)

Another thing I just thought of is that in some places I think it's illegal to own a hive that doesn't have removable frames and beekeepers are supposed to register their hives and get yearly inspections. I think I've heard of experiments like this before so this might not be a rule (or not a regularly enforced rule) in all places, but might be something you want to make yourself aware of.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

sarahsbees said:


> I'll add my two cents abut the mites. Mites are transmittable to one hive to another. So if I'm understanding, mite-resistant bees mean the bees in this one hive are safe. But what about bees in other hives? So it's a bit irresponsible to think, "my bees are safe so I'm alright" because if the hive gets robbed or there's drift or any of the other ways mites get transferred (those are the two I know about, but seeing as how fast they spread once they're introduced to an area, I imagine there are others) then someone else's bees very much are not safe!
> 
> The other issue I'm not understanding is the "I know the hives won't come apart." By this you mean you don't think you'll be able to get into the bottom box? How come? I'm new at this and all my equipment is new and I've never gone more than three weeks between inspections, so I honestly have no idea what a ten-year untouched hive looks like. But maybe double check by trying to pry it apart with a hive tool or something. Make sure you have a problem before getting too dedicated to solutions to it!
> 
> ...


Thank you. My thought, of course I'm a rookie and I'm just going by what I've read, is that doing the OAV treatment can't hurt anything. It seams to be safe. I also understand the theory of why treat a problem that doesn't exist. But if it's safe, why not treat them especially if I was going to split them. After I split them I'm certainly going to keep the mites under control on my split anyway.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

sarahsbees said:


> Another thing I just thought of is that in some places I think it's illegal to own a hive that doesn't have removable frames and beekeepers are supposed to register their hives and get yearly inspections. I think I've heard of experiments like this before so this might not be a rule (or not a regularly enforced rule) in all places, but might be something you want to make yourself aware of.


I've never heard of that. We got our bee's from a place here locally and I went to a field day there also. It was never mentioned. I'll look it up to be sure. Thanks


----------



## sarahsbees (Apr 20, 2016)

What also just occurred to me is there's a section on the forum about swarms and removing wild bees. You might want to scroll through there for some info -- if the hive really is unopenable, maybe treat this the same way others treat difficult-to-reach swarms they're trying to catch and do some research from that angle (if you haven't already).


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

A look inside






Tucked in the trees by a driveway 






The frame came out easier than expected

So this is the older hive. I went over there today. My friends are out of town,so I can't ask specifics now, but I'm sure this one is around 10 years old. The other hive is not as old. I'll post pics of it. I mainly wanted to see if I could get the boxes apart and see if I could remove frames. Of course I didn't get into the bottom box. I only looked at 3 frames.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

This is the beast in the woods. Nasty bee's






Looks like dried up capped honey on the far left??






Lots of eggs and larvae 

This hive is one nasty hive. Very aggressive bee's. I was able to get these boxes apart and the frames were easier to get out than the other hive. I noticed lots of pollen coming in on both hives.


----------



## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

Interesting. I am with tenbears on this.
I would be hesitant to take over or manage his bees, if he is indeed a friend, this is a fine way to test that friendship.

As a beginner you will make mistakes. I have made my fair share and murdered quite a few hives before i got the hang of it. I would get my own bees. If his have survived 10 years they will survive 11 without your help. And indeed if they are the holy grail and are survivor bees, you will be more able to utilize their special traits once you have a year or two as a beekeeper under your belt.

The good thing about all this is if his bees can survive and produce a surplus without a management strategy/swarm control then you are in good bee country, and may even have a nice feral population nearby which would make it worthwhile putting out swarm traps.


----------



## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

My concern is not just mites - putting the hives in an intermediate quarantine yard seems prudent and doing a serious disease inspection before putting them with your known bees at home.


----------



## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

Bad laying pattern in the beast hive, or is that VSH?


----------



## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Stephenpbird said:


> Bad laying pattern in the beast hive, or is that VSH?


looks as much like LW as anything else, not much of an angle though to judge height.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

Stephenpbird said:


> Bad laying pattern in the beast hive, or is that VSH?


The pattern looked bad to me and I'm a rookie. I certainly wouldn't know what to look for as far as diseases. Andrew really got me thinking. I don't want to transfer bee's anywhere near my hive that may have problems.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

Stephenpbird said:


> Interesting. I am with tenbears on this.
> I would be hesitant to take over or manage his bees, if he is indeed a friend, this is a fine way to test that friendship.
> 
> As a beginner you will make mistakes. I have made my fair share and murdered quite a few hives before i got the hang of it. I would get my own bees. If his have survived 10 years they will survive 11 without your help. And indeed if they are the holy grail and are survivor bees, you will be more able to utilize their special traits once you have a year or two as a beekeeper under your belt.
> ...


My friends that own the hives of course want honey, but they aren't willing to learn about it or put any effort what so ever into maintaining the hives. If I lost one of their hives, I really don't think it would be an issue. Just something to rag me about over a beer. One of the guys ( they are brothers) got stung 3 times this spring and we had to call an ambulance. He passed out cold.He'd never been allergic before. So he's not going to be going near those hives. In the end, I'll probably just let the hives be and help them each year get the honey OR NOT.
One thing I noticed clearly. I live 2 miles from them but I noticed their bee's are bringing in way more pollen than my hives are.


----------



## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

It is possible that instead of dying out and being repopulated with swarms every year or two, that these hives seldom have died out and just swarm a lot. That would be one reason for variable honey harvest. Find out about the bee neighborhood. Are there beekeepers nearby who treat or don't treat? Are the hives isolated from managed hives? Maybe leave them alone til the first warm day in spring and see if they are alive? Swarms shouldn't be around to move back into a vacant hive til at least early April in your area. If it turns out that they are truly local survivor bees, they will be valuable to treatment free beeks in your area. Some of us treatment free guys on Beesource may want to buy a few queens raised from these hives.


----------



## AHudd (Mar 5, 2015)

I'm surprised the hive in the shade isn't overrun with SHB.

Good luck,
Alex


----------



## JeronimoJC (Jul 21, 2016)

Let'em bee! 

Use swarms from the 10 year old hives to play/learn. Those old colonies may be much more valuable than you realize. I wouldn't treat them.


----------



## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

Obvious question that may already been answered. Whats the rush ? If they survived 10 years, they will survive another year or two for sure, for you to make direct observation. Why not "help" your friend in managing them where they are ? This way, you dont stress them, you are not responsible for them. You mentioned that you live 2 miles from them. Thats not far. 

This year is done anyways, go in next spring and check them out to see if they survived. If they are run of the mill or laying workers or anything else, they would have perished by then and no problem to deal with. 

If they survived, doing good, you can do borrow few frames of eggs, larva and do bunch of Nucs for year after. All the while continuously monitoring the mother colonies. You can also choose to do quarterly mite count (alcohol wash) and keep records.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

DaisyNJ said:


> Obvious question that may already been answered. Whats the rush ? If they survived 10 years, they will survive another year or two for sure, for you to make direct observation. Why not "help" your friend in managing them where they are ? This way, you dont stress them, you are not responsible for them. You mentioned that you live 2 miles from them. Thats not far.
> 
> This year is done anyways, go in next spring and check them out to see if they survived. If they are run of the mill or laying workers or anything else, they would have perished by then and no problem to deal with.
> 
> If they survived, doing good, you can do borrow few frames of eggs, larva and do bunch of Nucs for year after. All the while continuously monitoring the mother colonies. You can also choose to do quarterly mite count (alcohol wash) and keep records.



I think that's what I'll do. I would like to make a split on each hive next year but keep them over there away from my bee's. I don't know enough about diseases they could have. I'll be using empty hives that they have there and they'll split the honey with me. I will do mite checks. As far as them surviving 10 years, well that's anyone's guess. They may have repopulated and they not even know it.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

JeronimoJC said:


> Let'em bee!
> 
> Use swarms from the 10 year old hives to play/learn. Those old colonies may be much more valuable than you realize. I wouldn't treat them.


I don't understand why you wouldn't treat them. I've got a lot to learn about bee's but mites can't be a plus.


----------



## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Wish I could get landowner-beekeepers to take care of my bees year round and give me half the honey. If I could get them to extract, bottle, and label, it for me would be great too. 
One gallon a year crop per hive and I'd be moving them right out from under who ever was taking care of them.


----------



## DavidZ (Apr 9, 2016)

looks like shotgun brood pattern


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

aunt betty said:


> Wish I could get landowner-beekeepers to take care of my bees year round and give me half the honey. If I could get them to extract, bottle, and label, it for me would be great too.
> One gallon a year crop per hive and I'd be moving them right out from under who ever was taking care of them.


Yep.. These guys own the hives,a nice extractor,extra boxes and supers. Pretty much all the equipment necessary for taking care of their bee's. I'm a rookie and I'm eager to learn. They are life long friends and to me, I'm not out any money doing it, I'm gaining knowledge. Also, me being a rookie taking care of their bee's is a gamble on their part, but no one else is going to do it and I already know way more about it than they'll ever care to learn.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

DavidZ said:


> looks like shotgun brood pattern


Which could mean just a bad queen right?


----------



## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

robere, 

Mean hive; you have seen frame, we have seen a photo, that makes you the expert in my book. The difference between worker and LW cappings is something that is quite clear unless you are being attacked. cappings look normal or domed?
If LW there are no genes to save just a mite collapse waiting to hit the other hive.


----------



## JeronimoJC (Jul 21, 2016)

robere said:


> I don't understand why you wouldn't treat them. I've got a lot to learn about bee's but mites can't be a plus.


Think of it this way, why treat if you don't have to? There are countless beekeepers wishing they had treatment free bees. In succesful TF cases bees and mites have learned to coexist. You may have such situation in these old colonies. If anything, consider doing mite counts before deciding to treat. You may have a gem in your hands.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

So... Maybe I should compromise. Watch the old hives. Do a mite count out of curiosity, but don't treat either hive and see what happens. I'll certainly treat my hives here at my house. But something occurred to me. If a new queen would be beneficial I would never be able to introduce one because she would not be from the "resistant" colony. Am I missing something there? I would have to just let them create their own queens and hope for the best.


----------



## JeronimoJC (Jul 21, 2016)

The old hives will be producing their own "resistant" bees. Catch swarms from the old hives. If these are survivor bees you may have a good opportunity to catch a few good colonies for a number of years.


----------



## Vellumid (Aug 8, 2016)

If they're survivors and aggressive, they could be Africanized. Might want to send about a dozen off for testing.


----------



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Vellumid said:


> If they're survivors and aggressive, they could be Africanized. Might want to send about a dozen off for testing.


i doubt it in KY, and besides, if they are that agressive and NOT africanized would you still keep them around?


----------



## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

Africanized shouldn't be in Kentucky. You can google the geographical areas where they are.

Part of their aggressiveness may be from not having been worked in 10 years. Check again in the spring when a flow is going on.

If I had come across these hives, I would be excited and definitely not treat or requeen. If you did, they would lose their survivability, and you would have to check trough the hives regularly and treat regularly or they'd die.


----------



## razoo (Jul 7, 2015)

Contact your local bee club. Find someone with a ton of experience. Ask them to come inspect the hives and tell you what they see.


----------



## robere (Sep 4, 2016)

heaflaw said:


> Africanized shouldn't be in Kentucky. You can google the geographical areas where they are.
> 
> Part of their aggressiveness may be from not having been worked in 10 years. Check again in the spring when a flow is going on.
> 
> If I had come across these hives, I would be excited and definitely not treat or requeen. If you did, they would lose their survivability, and you would have to check trough the hives regularly and treat regularly or they'd die.


The most aggressive hive is only about 4 or 5 years old I found out today. The other is about 10. I agree they need to have an expert come look at them. Rather they will or not, I don't know, but I doubt it.


----------

