# some help please



## Honey man (Apr 11, 2013)

Newbee here I installed 4 nucs May 8 checked them a couple of times here is whats going on today
hive 1 lots of bees, lots of honey can not see queen or queen cells, or brood  see attached pics of frames please

























Question: should I be worried or is this normal?



hive 2 saw queen when installed have not seen her since but lots of brood i think and some honey


























Q is this really brood ( I hope )


hive 3 saw queen when installed have not seen her since lots of brood I think and some honey and strange looking comb














Q what is wierd comb should I remove it or ?


thanks for your help


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## KPeacock (Jan 29, 2013)

I'm new too, but i had a similar thing to your odd comb. i thought it might have been a Q-cell so, i left it alone in case the queen was killed in transit. since then, i have seen the Q, and the odd comb grew in size to that of a playing card. for some reason, one of the bee engineers must have been drunk and simply decided to make the comb with about a 1/4" gap between it and the plastic foundation. I removed it from the hive today in hopes that the bees will hire a new engineer and rebuild in the standard manner.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

You should see new eggs or larvae on all 3 hives by now. If all 3 queens are laying well
then the first batch of bees should hatch by now. And new eggs/larvae should be replacing
these empty cells already. Do you see lots of young fuzzy bees on all 3 hives? 
Based on the time frame you should see some new open broods also. If no new eggs or
young larvae then you should be concern about the queens not laying or not there. Is your
hive calm when you open it or are they edgy? Here is what a queen less hive vs looks like at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJHxA8J5fqk


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## Honey man (Apr 11, 2013)

thanks I must have several drunk bee engineers, they have done similar things in all of my hives.
I think I will remove it next inspection.


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## Gino45 (Apr 6, 2012)

1--my experience is that bees don't really like plastic foundation. Thus it results in 'burr' comb sometimes.

2--I think that I see mite feces in some cells (the white stuff).

3--I see sealed brood;however, I don't see any eggs or larvae. If there isn't any, you need to add a frame of same asap.

4--My best guess is that you have mite problems that need to be dealt with, again asap.


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## Honey man (Apr 11, 2013)

bees do not seem edgy ( nothing like video )very calm I did not see any eggs, may have over looked them but lots of honey about 3 full deep frames at least mostly honey very heavy. 
did see small bees on other hives do not remember about hive 1 I will check again soon
thanks for the input


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## spudrocket (Feb 13, 2013)

Gino45, there was larvae in hives 2 and 3. They were hard to see though
However, i know very little about mites, are you saying the white stuff in picture 1 is mite feces?


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## Honey man (Apr 11, 2013)

spudrocket 
thanks I was pretty sure that was larvae as well I did not see any white stuff while in the hive ( i could have missed it) I will check closer.
but I think that was due to bright sun and trying to take picture with one hand and support frame with other and not upset bees 
some of the uncapped honey appears blue in pic as well


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

I'd be concerned with #1 add a frame with eggs from the other hive. They will probably start building a queen cell. If you wait too long laying workers will start laying.
Just remove the bur comb in #3


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## Gino45 (Apr 6, 2012)

Pictures 2 & 3 have some white stuff on the sides of cells. That is what I saw, and I do see some cells with either developing brood or pollen. I can't really be sure from here.


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## Honey man (Apr 11, 2013)

Thanks sounds like a good idea


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## Honey man (Apr 11, 2013)

Gino45
thanks I will go back and check closer 

thanks to all I appreciate your advise I will certainly check them closer tomorrow and act according to what I find
thanks again
Larry


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## BeeTech (Mar 19, 2012)

not much queen related that can't be fixed with a frame of open brood. Since you might not be queenright, make sure that it has eggs in it as well as larvae.

www.bushfarms.com/beespanacea.htm


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## Honey man (Apr 11, 2013)

Thanks I plan on doing that tomorrow


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## Albatross (Mar 8, 2012)

Re the "weird comb". I've had that happen a lot with the PF-120 plastic frames. _*Break it off.*_ Don't let them build it out away from the foundation. It will screw up your whole hive. Spray some sugar water syrup on the bare foundation, or smear some honey on it. Sometimes that helps. Eventually they will build it properly.
Another thing I've done that works for me, is to give them a regular wooden frame with only half of a piece of *WAX* foundation at the top. They probably want to build some drone comb. They'll build it on the bottom half of the frame, and then go back to the plastic and build it correctly.


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## tommysnare (Jan 30, 2013)

hmmm dont mean to scare you but the girls generally 'back fill' the hatched brood cells when there is no queen. dont trust me though .... do solid inspections for urself. ull get allll the answers you need. you have to find eggs regularly. when we inspect our hives we DO look for the queens but more than that we look for new eggs and brood in all stages at ALL times. that means she is continuing to produce well. and yeah .... we gave up on plastic frames and/or foundation after our first year. we just dont like it. our bees dont either. not to mention its a nightmare to clean and if you need to remove a queen cell if you need to put one in a queenless hive you may have ... good luck with any success in a hatch. we prefer foundationless .... and soo do our girls


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## wcubed (Aug 24, 2008)

I would be "concerned" with all three for different reasons. What happened to # 4? Does it look better than these 3? My impression from the pics provided is that the nucs do not have the population to support rapid growth. Perhaps you shook off the bees to take pictures, but that would not account for the condition of the comb. 2+ weeks of added space should have them taking off like a rocket, building new comb everywhere. That also could be happening, but it's not obvious from the pics. Even the flap of new comb in #3 does not look like "new" comb. You are feeding syrup, are you not? With feeding and available field nectar, that new comb should be snow white.

#1. Queen problem. Other responders treated this subject.
#2. Spotty brood pattern. Could have a multitude of causes. Lack of population to support growth comes to mind. Would not be a concern if they were building new comb at a prodigeous rate and populating it with eggs as they went. 
#3. Too much drone brood. The starter colony does not need the burden on resources of rearing drones during the early expansion. In the nuc, you should have gotten frames of worker brood. Maybe the nuc seller palmed some cull frames off on you. Note that the drone cells extend outside the lower, left corner of pic. No telling how far it goes.

Walt


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## Honey man (Apr 11, 2013)

ok here is what is happeing today
did a check on hive 1 after moving a frame of brood on the 25 they now have 2 q-cells with larvae in them
should I add another frame of brood ? I hate to keep robbing my other hives if not necesary

hive 2 is about the same a little more drawn comb and honey not a lot of brood but saw it in varying stages of developement

hive 3 is pretty much same as 2

hive 4 is doing well drawing out and filling with honey, and pollen

it seems that everyone else I read about on here is adding supers and colonies are growing like crazy, 
should I be worried that mine have not exploded yet or just wait awhile :scratch:
thanks for your
Larry


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

If you found your other hives not growing as expected then you can put a 
frame of sealed broods, larvae, pollen/nectar, or even young worker bees from the strongest
hive to even out all of them. I did this to strengthen my weakest hive this way. 
And eventually all of them will be strong as well. But don't put too many older worker
bees that they might fight with the other bees inside the hive. Younger bees don't care.


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## wcubed (Aug 24, 2008)

You are not any further ahead on the #1 queen problem. Both cells are damaged and will likely be trashed by the colony. There was a guy on here a couple months ago who said they will repair a damaged queen cell, but I've never seen them do it. At least one more frame with eggs for them to try again.

Your flow should be winding down or finished soon. To get them growing through the summer doldrums, feed them generously. Think in terms of gallons, not pints or quarts. You need to protect your investment, even though it might get expensive.

Don't think you are far enough south to be in the tree farming area, but those miles of young pines do not provide much forage for the bees.

Walt


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