# No new comb...no new comb



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

If there is not a flow on, you will have to feed them to get them to draw new combs. Given the described size of your colony, it will take about 2 or 3 gallons of 1:1 sugar syrup to get 10 more combs drawn. If you decide to feed, give it to them 2 quarts at a time. This will take about 20 pounds of sugar.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I haven't followed your postings so don't know what lead up to this point but from your post seems you previously had bad DWV, then requeened, now don't have DWV? If so could it be the genetics of the new queens? Where did you get them?


----------



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

In addition to having a need for cells, and sufficient caloric resources (syrup or nectar), the hive also needs bees of the right age for making wax.. (Yes, I know that older bees can regress to wax production, if there is no other possibility. But I think for the kind of florid wax production that gets lots of new combs drawn in a hurry you need a big population of bees of the right stage.)

Since you requeened a month ago, the earliest cohorts of her bees that are the right age should be just coming to that point now. But, of course, it will take a while longer to get a really large number of these new bees in the pipeline. Keep feeding. It takes awhile to re-balance the age-class assortment among the workers in a hive that has taken a severe hit. (I think feeding may also lower the demand for bees to leave the hive on nectar-gathering trips, perhaps freeing more bees for house-duty, or at least not promoting an early switch from house to foraging.)

I have seen colonies that seem to recover from mite-vectored DWV (once they are cleared of mites) that still seem to have a latent potential for expressing it again when stressful conditions return. In other words I think they become asymptomatic carriers. Whether the transmission route is through feeding by successive generations of carrier-workers, or through a resurgence of mites vectoring the virus through biting an asymptomatic carrier adult and then passing it to fresh rounds of pupae, I don't know. The biology of DWV is at the top on my list of winter research topics. As OldTimer noted, though, your new queen may be providing some genetic resistance to it, as well.

I would also suggest establishing a routine for continued mite monitoring. (I know your sugar dusting has been for its therapeutic possibilities, so far.) Perhaps monthly sugar rolls of a 200-bee sample would be good for you. I don't recall just now if you have the capacity to do weekly sticky boards under your hives, or not. But that is also a good technique for long-term monitoring. Single, one-off, sticky board counts are not very useful, but weekly counts done faithfully are quite good at displaying trends in the mite population. 

It sounds like your thoughtful choices and care are starting pay off for your bees. That's very good news!

Enjambres


----------



## diymom (Apr 8, 2016)

that makes a ton of sense, bees of the right age. i have elderly bees right now.
my new queen is from a san diego tf operation which breeds italians, but has large populations of feral survivor bees around...so maybe there is a genetic factor. 
i dont know if we are in a dearth, my small patch of wildflowers and my garden is blooming, lime tree, squash and pumkins, passionfruit vine, tomatoes,carrots, herbs, buckwheat, cassia, but beyond my suburban yard, i dont know. there are thousands of succulents lining the freeway a few blocks away that bloom yearround, and flame trees and jaccarandas and other commercially bred flowering plants like roses and hollyhock, plumerias and privet. i dont know if we ever have dearths in so cal suburbia, something is always blooming. i am going to wait two weeks for the bees to be the right age and see if they begin to draw. if they still don't, i will feed.

how can you tell there is a dearth?

i have those sticky boards, so i just need to check them weekly. i have been so busy, leaving the bees alone has been much easier this month.


----------



## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

To test for dearth: put out a plate of sugar water (add a bit of scent). If in 30 minutes you have 500 bees jostling for room to lick the plate clean, you are in a dearth. If you have no visitors in 12 hours, there is a flow on.

Other method: look at the honey comb. If the cells are being "eaten back", you are in an extreme dearth. If the cells don't shake, you are in a moderate dearth. If you can shake water-thin nectar off the comb, you are on a flow.

Eaten back comb has capped honey surrounded by dry cells that were formerly capped and filled with honey. The bees eat back honey in a orderly fashion one cell at at time.


----------



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Oh, sigh!

What I wouldn't do for a blooming plumeria tree! I grew up in the tropics and that smell instantly takes me home.

Enj.


----------



## diymom (Apr 8, 2016)

Try trees, my whole property line to the south is overgrown with them. We trim them every year and pot the branches and give them away the following year when they grow. I don't think the bees do much with them. I pick them and put them in a bowl of water to float for a week and i make leis for people.
Anyway, i did the sugar water on a plate...one bee, and that was it all afternoon. Apparently they have nectar and are waiting on the corect aged bees.
I was next to the hive under my corn stalks and i kept hearing this weird noise, like clicking or popping in the hive. Whats that???


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Bees chewing something, they will be making room somewhere at a timber join.


----------

