# Should I give up or try again?



## citybeekeeper (Oct 27, 2014)

Both my son and I started our first hives this spring with Brushy Mountain 8-Frame medium beginner kits and Bee Weaver Packages. After I installed my package they built up comb quickly and soon filled both medium supers and I did not realize I had a problem until I judged I had a laying worker because of spotty brood. I checked with a number of package suppliers and they were all sold out of 2014 packages by then. So, I made the decision to let the hive die out this year with the intent of repackaging next spring. My bees were so gentle I did not have to smoke and could handle frames without any sign of aggression. 
My son's hive also built up comb quickly and soon filled both supers and then started building comb on the outside of the hive. My the time he ordered additional boxes and got them installed they had built about 2 inches of comb on one side of the outside of the hive. He never opened his hives for inspection because his bees were always a little defensive and would 'come after' anyone who got within about 6-8 feet of his hive.
We both live in a city which requires re-queening every 6 months and permission of a majority of adjoining property owners. This fall, when it came time for him to requeen, he opened his hive for the first time and it was completely packed with bees (4 medium supers) and he could not find the queen before dark so he closed up the hive with the intent of trying again the next day. This inspection made the bees mad and they began to 'go-after' anybody that moved within about a 3 house radius of his property. Even after 24 hours they were still harassing neighbors and several had been stung. Fearing that he would lose their permission if he did not take action he made the decision to destroy the hive.
His experiences now make me question if I want to attempt to repackage my hive next spring. Comments welcomed.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Find a more remote area place to keep the hives and try again. It sounds like your city might be a little difficult to keep bees in.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

>We both live in a city which requires re-queening every 6 months. Idiot bureaucrats. 
Don't ask don't tell. 

Bees are not pets like cats or dogs that live for years. Plan on starting over every few years. Try another bee supplier. Weavers are known to sometimes be hot.


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## BigGun (Oct 27, 2011)

Aren't the bee weaver bees supposed to be more aggressive than normal?


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Regular inspections help keep the bees calmer IMO as well. If they're not used to being messed with, of course they get upset when you go in and make a mess of things, especially if you haven't checked them in awhile, it's more disruptive.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

JRG, I'd say that regular inspections help keep the beekeeper calmer. More hands on experience is what is needed here, imo. 

As far as giving up, only you know whether that is the right thing to do. But if it is something you are still itching to do, find a support group. Not just beesource, but one close at hand that can actually do things w/you.


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

BigGun said:


> Aren't the bee weaver bees supposed to be more aggressive than normal?


Bee Weaver bees have some Africanized Genetics. That said, they will replace queens heading hives deemed aggressive.


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## gezellig (Jun 11, 2014)

The city actually requires a beekeeper to requeen every six months??


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## mahobee (Apr 24, 2013)

Is Lubbock a city?


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

gezellig said:


> The city actually requires a beekeeper to requeen every six months??


That is one response to allow the keeping of bees in an area where feral bees are Africanized. The city apparently doesn't want anyone to keep bees that might be Africanized.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

mahobee said:


> Is Lubbock a city?


Yes


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

2 pieces of advice.

Take a beekeepers class.

Move


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Unless you have more experience than is noted in your post, just assigning the tag "laying worker" to a situation of "spotty brood" may not have been correct - you may have had another, possiby correctable, problem.

Laying worker (as opposed to a drone-laying queen, which is a different problem) happens when the hive has lost its queen, and been unable to cook up another one on its own. (This happens when the queen is lost and young eggs or larvae of a suitabl age are not present.) Or perhaps they did make another one but she was lost on her virgin flight, leaving the colony then hopelessly queenless. At any rate, once that happens sometimes a worker will begin to lay all drones (which is all they can because they are not mated). LW _can_ be rectified, with some trouble, and not always successfully. But it requires effort and knowledge, and most importantly, a new queen, but not a new package.

I am assuming that since you are required to re-queen every six months you have easy-to-find queens, i.e. well-marked queens, and a ready commercial source for new queens? 

Did you see your queen when you noticed the spotty pattern? If you were seeing any worker cells at all, then you still had a fertile queen, since a laying worker can, by definition, only lay the torpedo- or bullet- shaped drone cells.

"Spotty brood" patterns (usually appears as many empty cells within a larger patch of worker-brood cells) can come from many things, including heavy varroa mite infestion. What were your mite numbers before this? Varroa mites can be treated, and hives can sometimes recover from a heavy load of mites and the virus diseases that the mites introduce to the bees. But that, too, requires recoginition of the problem (regular mite drops counts or rolls are typically the way beekeepers keep on top of this) and then some effort to treat the hive to kill the bees, but again not a package.

Empty cells within a larger field of worker cells can also be a sign of colony strength if the bees are teariing out any damaged pupae, and they are the so-called hygenic strain of bees. So merely seeing spottiness requires some interpretation to make a correct diagnosis.

Unfortunately, just allowing a colony that's failing to thrive to collapse can lead to problems for any beekeepers within the foraging range (a couple of miles in each direction) of your hive. If you're going to bring in and then keep bees in a bee-(or people-) dense area, IMHO you must take responsibility for them and any problems that arise. If the problem is truly un-solvable, then euthanizing a hive is better than just letting it die out, in most circumstances.

I agree with the posters above: your son's situation may have been exacerbated by the lack of regular and more-frequent handling of the bes by doing inspections. The colony does get accustomed to a certain level of beekeeper's presence and the resulting "meddling" (as seen from their point of view), which is what we call "management". In his situation, early requeening might have headed that problem off, eliminating the need to euthanize them.

If you are both still interested in beekeeping, I don't see why trying again is out of the question. Though it would be a good idea to take some classes over the winter. Beekeeping is definitely not a "get 'em and forget 'em" type of hobby. Very experienced beekeepers can be less-interventionist on their colonies, but newbies like you and I (I'm only in my second year) must be constantly on top of things. And when a probem arises, immediately seek help from more-experience beeks. I've gotten enormous help from my bee-equipment supplier (Betterbee) which is local to me, from here on BS, and from members of my nearest bee-club.

The issue of whether you can begin again on the same equipment does come up: in your son's case depending on the method he may have used to destroy the hive, the boxes and combs may, or may not, be salvagable. For instance if he killed them _in the hive _with insecticide, it is not re-usable. In your case, I would find a local expert to look at your combs to make sure they appear to be disease-free. If left unattended and unproctected over the winter, though, they may be damaged by wax moths or mice.

Good (and better!) luck with your next bees, if you decide to continue.

Enj.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

>until I judged I had a laying worker because of spotty brood

Drone brood or worker brood? Did you take any pictures?

A miss-diagnosis could have been one of many other possible problems.


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## citybeekeeper (Oct 27, 2014)

enjambres said:


> Unless you have more experience than is noted in your post, just assigning the tag "laying worker" to a situation of "spotty brood" may not have been correct - you may have had another, possiby correctable, problem.
> 
> Laying worker (as opposed to a drone-laying queen, which is a different problem) happens when the hive has lost its queen, and been unable to cook up another one on its own. (This happens when the queen is lost and young eggs or larvae of a suitabl age are not present.) Or perhaps they did make another one but she was lost on her virgin flight, leaving the colony then hopelessly queenless. At any rate, once that happens sometimes a worker will begin to lay all drones (which is all they can because they are not mated). LW _can_ be rectified, with some trouble, and not always successfully. But it requires effort and knowledge, and most importantly, a new queen, but not a new package.
> 
> ...


My son used a shop vacuum to empty his hive in order to save the equipment for reuse.

I have stored 2 of my medium boxes with frames about 20-25% full of honey in the house wrapped in order to give next years bees a head start hopefully.

I selected Bee Weaver Bees because they were "Texas" bees and advertised to be varrora mite resistant because I reasoned that they would be more adapted to the hot weather we have around here than would bees from some cold climate and would not need mite treatment because there are so few bees in the area. If they are 'more aggressive' than some other bees I would appreciate the name of a supplier of 'gentle' bees which would thrive in this hot environment. The only source I have for queens is to order them from a supplier.

I have been unable to identify anyone else in the area keeping bees. This is not an ideal environment for bees since it is rather arid but I had a wild colony which lived in the eve of my house for a number of years that stayed alive until it became aggressive and I killed it off with insecticide since I could not access it without damage to the house. 









I tried to attach the only image I have that might have meaningful information. Hopefully it shows up.

I saw a link to a city ordinance on this forum a day or so ago that 'required requeening if the hive became aggressive' but I have been unable to find it since. I thought if I could relocate it I would plant the idea of an ordinance change with the city officials just for the heck of it.

Thanks for your and everyone else's input.


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## Leather Jim (Jun 30, 2013)

BigGun said:


> Aren't the bee weaver bees supposed to be more aggressive than normal?


 Perhaps 10 years ago they were, we currently have 50 hives headed by BeeWeaver Queens and couldnt be happier, low varroa count about 1%, and no aggression issues at all. I have Carnies and Italians that are mean as all get out though. The test will be if they make it through our winter

To the OP, get some classes and find a local mentor, you need to get into those hives more often and never stop learning. 

Jim


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

I would check those wrapped frames if they haven't been through a period of being stored in the freezer. There can be tiny small hive beetle and wax moth eggs on the combs that could be hatching out and making a mess of the comb while in storage. 

Freeze first, then defrost and store, if you can't keep them frozen. Also unreduced nectar (nectar brought but not yet dried down enough to be honey) can sometimes ferment which will be foul. Nectar can be shaken out of the frame because it is still very liquid.

I can't tell from your image whther that's laying worker or spotty brood, but my point was that they are not the same thing. Each has its own, different, causes and cures. But clearly something caused your hive to die. 

When you believed you had spotty brood/laying worker did you see your queen?

Were you checking for varroa?

How did things go at the end - lots of dead bees, crawlers on the ground, or just a gradual dwindling, or a sudden vanishing? These are all clues as to what may have happened and the cause. You need to put some thought into that because if you get bees again you'll want to avoid the same outcome. 

Even though you'll read statements about not disrupting the bees by too-frequent inspections, for new beekeepers without a clue to what they are looking at, inspections every week to ten days the first year is probably the best idea. I know in my first summer (2013) I could take the hive apart frame by frame, pack it back up and still feel that I barely understood what I had been holding in my hands and staring at. If you can't imagine devoting that much time to your bees in the first years maybe it's not the right time for you to keep bees. Even if you find the bees intimidating (I certainly did!), you still have to suck it up and get in there. 

Enj.


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## citybeekeeper (Oct 27, 2014)

"There can be tiny small hive beetle and wax moth eggs on the combs that could be hatching out and making a mess of the comb while in storage." 

Thanks for the warning. I checked the stored boxes and both were full of wax moths and about half of my pretty white comb has been destroyed. Do I cut out the bad stuff after freezing or just clean out the frames and start all over?

"When you believed you had spotty brood/laying worker did you see your queen?"

I never saw my queen after she was released. She looked good in the cage when I put her in and 7 days later she had been released but I could not find her and never saw what I recognized as good brood.

"Were you checking for varroa?"

I tried to spot varroa on the bees but did not do a bottom board test. I reasoned that since this is not 'bee country' that there would be little chance of varroa from day one but I tried to be in a learning mode when I went into the hive and tried to observe everything I could.

"How did things go at the end."

There was a very slow decline which was much slower than I expected without evidence of a queen. My notes indicate there was 14 weeks from the date of package install until the last bee was observed, although a gradual decline was observed before then. 

"for new beekeepers without a clue to what they are looking at, inspections every week to ten days the first year is probably the best idea." 

As an old retired codger my reason for starting to keep bees was to have something interesting to do. I am not particularly interested in honey production and would love an observation hive but reasoned that was not the way to go for a beginner. I sat the hive just outside a picture window so I could observe "goings and comings" on a frequent basis and opened the hive every week but skipped a few weeks because of being out of town. I kept notes of what I observed every visit.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

citybeekeeper;1181100As an old retired codger my reason for starting to keep bees was to have something interesting to do. I am not particularly interested in honey production and would love an observation hive but reasoned that was not the way to go for a beginner. I sat the hive just outside a picture window so I could observe "goings and comings" on a frequent basis and opened the hive every week but skipped a few weeks because of being out of town. I kept notes of what I observed every visit.[/QUOTE said:


> You might look at a top bar hive with an observation window. it's been a ton of fun for me. I'm now up to 5. Relatively new to beekeeping, but in deep. Beeline Apiaries and woodenware sells a kit for $150 that you can retrofit with a piece of glass.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

@CityBee,

I started with swarm bees last June and until this year I never had a marked queen. My mentor marked three of my four and it really does make beekeeping easier. You can easily find a marked queen, and if necessary, temporarily cage her and be confident you won't hurt her if you're feeling clumsy.

But absent that, when you inspect you have to find a way to see the eggs and small larvae so you can get a good feel for her presence and laying competency. I wear glasses, and I'm in my 60's, so I do know that it can be hard to see eggs. In fact, I went my whole last summer without ever seeing an egg - or even any of my queens. The best I could do was spot fat larvae-grubs that were practically at the capped stage. I confess, I was really thrilled to finally see one of my queens in April of this year, after I'd had my bees from the previous June. It encouraged me to pay closer attention, and to start using a magnifying glass. The magnifier made all the difference for me. Whenever I am going to open the hive I set my push-in queen cage and the magnifier on the top of the next hive so I know exactly where they are. That single step upped my confidence level considerably.

Now, about mites, (notwithstanding that you had Beeweaver bees and believe yourself to be in an area w/o bees), it's essential these days to find ways of checking for varroa. I have only glimpsed (or thought I did) one or two varroa on my living bees as they come and go. Relying on whether you can see them or not, is a foolish idea. You will rarely ever see them, and you can still be having a very serious problem. The _only_ way to know for sure if you have a mite problem is to regularly use sticky board drop counts (by regularly I mean once a week or ten days) or to do one variety of the "roll" tests periodically. 

The advantage of sticky boards are that they are passive and can be done without disturbing the bees. So for new beekeepers they are more likely to actually get done, rather than be constantly put off. A sticky board only measures the number of hapless mites that fall off, so it has some built-in inaccuracies. But if performed faithfully throughout the entire bee-active year (which in Lubbock might be all year), you will get a useful picture of the ebb and flow of your mite population. Doing a sticky board only every now and then doesn't work though, since you're only measuring a surrogate (the number of dumb mites that fall off) not the actual number of mites in the hive. Plus, if you have a really under- or over-sized hive the numbers will be correspondingly out of whack. But if it's the _only_ test you know will get done, then it is the_ best _test to do.

Rolls (alcohol, ether, or powdered sugar) provide a much more accurate picture because they measure the rate of infestation on the actual bees. You can do a sugar roll without having to kill the tested bees, but the other two do kill bees, something I knew from the start I wouldn't do. And you don't have to do roll tests all that often. Perhaps only a few times of the year will give you a read on whether you are developing a problem (or are likely to), so you can decide what to do about that before they gt out of hand. I set myself the task of mastering how to do sugar rolls this year and while I still have to put my mind to it, it wasn't as bad as I feared. And coincidentally this was a bad year for mites where I am, and though I have treated for them, I have had re-infestations that have required re-treatment. if I hadn't been doing the rolls all summer long (for practice and to increase my skill in doing them), I might have made the fatal error in assuming that because I had treated with an effective product, early in the treatment season, that I was good to go for the rest of the summer. 

You can learn to do sugar rolls from information here and online. Practically no special equipment is needed, and you can make what you don't already have from common household items.

The thing is, though, you really ought _not_ to do a sugar roll that includes the queen, so having her marked will make your day go easier, because you collect bees for testing from precisely the area where she might be lurking around laying eggs.

So may I suggest that next year you order a marked queen (costs a buck so extra) and in the meantime figure out which method you're going to use to monitor for mites, and learn how to do that. If sticky boarding is what you know you will follow through on, don't let anyone discourage you with claims that sticky boarding is useless or inaccurate. It doesn't measure the same thing as one of the rolls, but it does provide an actionable picture of the mites. 

Rolls take a bit more moxie to learn to do, but will provide an even better reference point. Even though you can probably get away with just a few per year, for practice try doing them every three weeks. By the end of next summer (if you give bees another go) you will feel quite comfortable - and you will have a very valuable tool for safe-guarding the health of your bees. 

No matter which method you choose, you will get a good feeling of beekeeping competence and stewardship from knowing your mite levels. That alone is worth the trouble it takes to do the tests, at least to me.

Watching your hives by the hour is one the supreme pleasures of beekeeping. (Maybe it's just fun to sit and relax while they are so busy at work?) I rarely miss a day of going out to see them. My first summer I just went and watched from several feet away. This summer I plunked my feet up on their platform, leaned back and took a nap. The sound of a hive is the best cure for insomnia! When I woke up there would be bees walking over my veil and arms, exploring me. Did you know they taste with their _feet_? 

As for the combs, I'm glad my heads up made you take a look. Salvage what you can and then freeze it. When in doubt keep a bit more than you think is perfectly fine. Freezing will kill the bugs and next spring your girls will make short work of tidying up the remnants. And nothing about dead wax moths is harmful to the bees. Wax moths are just nature's scavengers, recycling a resource. A too-small, or failing, hive can get over-run by a heavy infestation, but in most cases the bees will chase down and kill any larvae that hatch. Your new bees will quickly remodel and re-use whatever you can salvage. I think I would freeze the comobs for at least a couple of weeks, but even better would be until you need them again.

Did you find any leads to local bee club, or ther beekeeper's?

Enj.


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## citybeekeeper (Oct 27, 2014)

I found one Lubbock beekeeper who posted to this forum a couple of years ago and sent him a private message but no reply yet. I plan on visiting the local Ag. Experiment Station and perhaps the Code Enforcement Department of the City when I get the opportunity. Thanks for those suggestions. I talked to one 'local honey' seller at a local farmer's market but he leases his apple orchard to beekeepers and takes honey as his payment and claimed he did not know, or would not tell me, the names of the beekeeper who supplied his orchard with bees. I had room in the freezer for about 1/2 of my infected frames so I picked out the worst and put them in. The rest I moved outside until it becomes their turn. I will salvage what I can and return to storage. I may be able to salvage about 1/2 of my comb. My Bee Weaver queen was marked. It is my belief that she either flew off or was killed by her workers when released. On day 7 after installing her cage I observed several thousand bees "milling around" in the back yard for an hour or so before returning to the hive and settling down to normal activity. This lasted about an hour after I first observed it occurring so my afterthought is that she may have flew out of the hive box and the bees were confused whether to follow her or return to the hive. I never did figure out why there was so much outside activity for those few hours.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>This inspection made the bees mad and they began to 'go-after' anybody that moved within about a 3 house radius of his property.

So trying to requeen really helped...

I think it's always a good idea to have a contingency plan for what to do if the bees get "hot". If you have a place lined up to move them to while you requeen, you can close them up, load them up and move them immediately rather than after a few neighbors were stung... or worse...

Then requeen. Then when they are calm and manageable you can move them back.


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

One more suggestion would be to try using a queen excluder. I know a lot of people like the medium hives. But, one draw back is you have a lot more frames to go through. If you ran a single deep with an excluder and then medium supers on top you would only have to look through the single deep for the queen. I have dealt with several Weaver queens and they have all been a little hotter then I really like. Not unworkable but, a little hot.


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## Margot1d (Jun 23, 2012)

I keep bees uncomfortably close to many many people in NYC. My advice is stay on top of your hive. Inspect once or twice a week in the spring. If you are afraid to open your hive you have a problem that should be addressed before the hive grows in size. I had aggressive bees my first year and thought it was normal. Looking back I am lucky that I didn't have a more of a problem. They seemed content to chase me around the yard and left other people alone. Bees are like livestock, your skill in working the hive has an impact on how the bees react to the aggressive act of breaking up their home. That said, hot bees have no place in the city.


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## citybeekeeper (Oct 27, 2014)

I am understanding that it is OK to use one deep, I am assuming 10 frame, super for the brood chamber. Most literature I've read has said to use two deeps or three medium 8 frame suppers for the brood. My son set up 3 medium 8 frame supers for the brood, then queen excluder, then honey super. When he went to requeen all 4 boxes were completely full of bees and running over. When you pulled a frame it would come out 4 or more bees deep all over with bees bearding off the bottom. Every nook and cranny of the hive was crammed with bees. There was no way to find the queen in all that mess. Since honey production is not the objective the question has arisen if one can confine the queen to a smaller brood chamber, thus giving her less room to lay eggs and thus limit the size of the hive, but how small a space can she be restricted to until she decides to up and leave or result in a hive too small to winter? I also equipped myself for a three 8 frame supper brood setup but my population started to decline before they combed brood super number 2. It was my opinion that my son's hive was cramped for space most of it's 6 month's life since he had piling of bees on the outside of his hive almost all the time and for a while the bees were building comb on the outside, but more boxes to search would not have solved the high population problem.

The thought has occurred if one could put a queen excluder under the bottom brood box and then use a fume pad and Bee Go to drive a large portion of the workers out, then open the hive and there she is. (or an escape screen board?) the thought has also occurred that one could put a queen excluder between every brood box about a week or so before requeening and then check to see which of the brood boxes had fresh brood, then the search would be limited to one box.

Some way or another we need to find, or learn, a way to re-queen efficiently without making the bees mad since the city ordinance requires that we do that every 6 months and still maintain permission of our neighbors. This may be an ordinance too restrictive to operate under but it is that or forget about trying to keep bees here. There are hives nearby somewhere because I see bees visiting my back yard and I am too far from the outer city limits for their hive to be outside the city but they are most likely 'don't ask, don't tell hives' or wild. All the beekeepers in the city I have run into in the past have had 'don't tell hives', but all those beekeepers are elderly disabled or dead now. They, of course, did not requeen every 6 months.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Every nook and cranny of the hive was crammed with bees. There was no way to find the queen in all that mess.

If you split it up so each box is on it's own bottom with a lid and the old location has an empty box (preferably full of drawn comb) for the field bees to go back to, then in four days the one with eggs in it is the one with the queen in it. All of them will be more manageable (small hives always are) and you can find the queen. Meanwhile you can destroy the queen cells in all the other boxes that had brood and the bees will probably have abandoned any that were all honey. You can requeen each separately or requeen the one that used to have a queen (after dispatching her) and then recombine one box at a time.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesrequeeninghot.htm


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## LoAndBeeHold (Jan 23, 2015)

citybeekeeper, 

I'm sorry to hear about your challenges last year. I'm a few miles north of Buffalo Springs Lake, so we're not very far apart. I'm just getting started myself so I have no counsel to offer you. Perhaps we can learn together and maybe find some others in the area. Send me a PM with contact info if you'd like to talk or meet.

Steve


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I think you should both give it one more try. Some people are just unsuited for bees, my reason for thinking you should try again is that you have done a lot of research and tried pretty hard, even down to analysing when you felt there was a queen problem in your hive, this means you have the makings of success. 

A few things to consider that will increase your odds. Firstly, an inexperienced person going through a 4 box hive packed with bees especially when they are nasty, to try and find the queen, is a nightmare scenario. You need a better way. You could do as M Bush suggests and separate all the boxes, or, what I do, put a queen excluder between each box for 5 days. OK you don't have enough excluders, but if you have to do this every 6 months, get some for the purpose. What you do is put an excluder between each box. 5 days later look through the boxes, only one will have eggs in the cells, that is the box with the queen. Carry this box to the opposite end of the yard. Then as you go through it a lot of the older aggressive bees will go back to the original site leaving less bees to look through. But after all that if the queen still cannot be found, shake all the bees onto the ground and carry the box back bee free.
Second thing, is medium depth 8 frame boxes only have around 1/2 the volume of a 10 frame deep. So your sons 4 box hive was only the equivalent of a 2 deep hive. As most normal healthy hives could be expected to fill a minimum of 4 deeps but often more, your sons hive was of inadequate size and bound to have problems. Although these small boxes are touted for being lighter and easy to lift, they come with a host of other problems far as the practical beekeeping aspects go, as you have discovered. Me, I cannot imagine trying to keep a healthy hive in these tiny boxes, I use 10 frame deeps. Heavier, but suit the bees better and avoid a heap of problems.

End of the day, you and your sons problems were caused by lack of practical experience. You obviously did lots of research and did very well for a first attempt. But the practical experience meant that when confronted with problems things did not work out. I would recommend making strong efforts to find a mentor, you will be amazed how easy it can look if a more experienced person is working your hive. The fact that your city has rules for bees indicates that at least at some time there must have been bees there, and they must have a register of beekeepers. I wonder if you could use that to track down some possible help.


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## nater37 (Aug 15, 2013)

citybeekeeper said:


> My son used a shop vacuum to empty his hive in order to save the equipment for reuse.
> 
> I have stored 2 of my medium boxes with frames about 20-25% full of honey in the house wrapped in order to give next years bees a head start hopefully.
> 
> ...


Good Luck Citybeekeeper, we live in Amarillo and this is just a guess. I have found that we have a lot of feral Africanized hives around here and Lubbock. With you never messing with your bees and them building outside box it is very good chance they swarmed and then re-queened and return the queen had to make mating flight and breeding with some of the Africanized feral stock. This could be the reason for the mean bees. Specially if you both of you got packages from same place and yours was not mean. Now the reason I say good luck is my dad just re-queened with Bee Weaver bees last fall and his hives are very aggressive now. Which is one reason the bees are very hygienic. I did read on there web site they will replace if they are aggressive, but there is always a clause at bottom of statement. I had a aggressive cut-out I did last year and brought to my backyard and it rained havoc with neighbors and I had to move to Clarendon and eventually kill. If things don't work out just make sure you have a place to go with them or you could get yourself in a mess.


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## NeilV (Nov 18, 2006)

If you try again, consider getting some Pendell's Apiaries Cordovan Italian queens. They are good bees, gentle, and you can generally tell if the bees have changed queens because the Cordovan color will go away. Cordovan Italians would probably do fine in the Lubbock area, but you will need to make sure your hives don't have Africanized bees. 

Every beekeeper has to have some measure of hard-headedness to get through the initial learning curve. (A mentor and classes would help a great deal too.)


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I had a hard time finding a junk queen this yr, they hive wasn't too packed and they weren't mean, but she was constantly be on the run, I went through every frame multiple times and never could find her. So I set an empty box to the side and pulled every frame out of the brood box and shook it clean putting them in the empty box. I layed down a queen excluder and an empty box on top of it. I then proceeded to shake every frame into the empty super and set the frames into another empty box sitting in the original location to give the field bees a place to go and when it was all said and done I left one frame of pollen/ honey with open cells in the empty super and closed it up and came back 2 hrs later. All the flying bees returned to the old box location all the nurse bees went down through the excluder to be with the brood and guess who was on the only frame in the top box with only a handfull of bees with her? If you did this with an agressive hive, close them up move the entire hive to a safe place and suit up well.


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## citybeekeeper (Oct 27, 2014)

I've decided not to repopulate my hive this spring. I have a trip planned in the spring during the time that I should be feeding new bees plus I have a new roof project scheduled for spring to repair hail damage and am of the opinion that roofers would not want to work around an active hive. In the meantime I am going to try to continue learning, try to identify other beekeepers in the area, and hopefully repopulate in 2016. However the "requeening every 6 months" written into the city ordinance and the requirement to report such remains a major stumbling block to keeping bees in the city of Lubbock.


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## nater37 (Aug 15, 2013)

Requeening every 6 months is crazy. Do you have to document it? How would they keep track?


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## citybeekeeper (Oct 27, 2014)

The Lubbock city ordinance reads:

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person to keep or allow bees, their hives, or any abandoned hives within the city limits, except honeybees may be kept if all of the following conditions are met:
(1) All hives shall be located a minimum of thirty (30) feet from any property line and enclosed in a fenced area;
(2) There shall be no more than four (4) hives per city lot;
(3) There is an adequate source of water within twenty (20) feet of all hives;
(4) All hives shall require written permission to be obtained from the majority of owners of all adjoining property;
(5) There may be maintained one nucleus for each two (2) colonies. The nucleus shall not exceed one ten-frame hive body. Each nucleus shall be disposed of within (60) days after is is acquired;
(6) Each hive must be re-queened at least once every six months; and
(7) The owner notifies the city enforcement agent, in writing, of the location and number of hives in his possession. The owner must also notify the city enforcement agent, in writing, each time he re-queens each hive.
(b) It shall be a violation for any person who owns, harbors, or possesses bees to refuse, upon request by the department, to make his/her bees, premises, facilities, equipment, and any necessary permit(s) available for inspection for the purpose of ascertaining compliance with the provisions of this chapter.


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## Haraga (Sep 12, 2011)

To answer the OP question, yes just give it up. Try again later.


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## nater37 (Aug 15, 2013)

citybeekeeper said:


> The Lubbock city ordinance reads:
> 
> (a) It shall be unlawful for any person to keep or allow bees, their hives, or any abandoned hives within the city limits, except honeybees may be kept if all of the following conditions are met:
> (1) All hives shall be located a minimum of thirty (30) feet from any property line and enclosed in a fenced area;
> ...


That is crazy. I called the city here in Amarillo. They said they support Beekeepers and try to work with them anyway possible. I think I would try to go to city meeting and talk to your commissioner. Sorry to hear that


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>The owner must also notify the city enforcement agent, in writing, each time he re-queens each hive.

I don't see how I could keep up with the paperwork...


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

Citybeekeeper, how do you plan to protect the drawn comb that you have until 2016? I think the SHB and wax moths are going to make a mess of it. Are you sure there isn't a friend somewhere close to you that can keep your hive for the spring of 2015 while you get the other things done?


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## j.kuder (Dec 5, 2010)

Michael Bush said:


> >The owner must also notify the city enforcement agent, in writing, each time he re-queens each hive.
> 
> I don't see how I could keep up with the paperwork...


who would want to? 
if you want to be a beekeeper get bees. if you want to be a bee watcher go to you tube. to many people getting into bees to help save the bees and it really don't help. i think it might be doing more harm than good by creating neglected hives.


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## bean tree homestead (Nov 18, 2013)

I have not seen the list of books you plan to read. If you have a Kindle or an E-reader you can get a lot of them for free. Also your local Library can get them for you. Their are also a fair amount of free videos put out by reputable manufactures at your disposal. You said you wanted to keep bees because it was interesting so how much research did you do prior to geting bees? Personally I did nothing but read..research and repeat my first year BEFORE getting bees. I felt I owed them the best stewardship I could grant them.


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## tristan36 (Sep 16, 2012)

I have had two queens from Weaver. The first was the most gentle and best producing queen imaginable. She was so good that the next year, I ordered another for a split. That hive was the hottest, meanest bunch of bees you could think of. We had 50 yards of pasture that went untouched (on the other side of a fence 20 yards from the bees) by the horse because the poor thing couldn't get to that part of the pasture. We had to destroy the hive because nobody could go out in our orchard.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Now THAT is a hive with attitude!


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