# Hive die outs



## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

alpha6 said:


> Anyone else experiencing this? The majority of the queens are Kona but it could be anything.


Ya every year at this time. Also note, nothing wrong with Kona.

This month, I'm going around with a queen bank checking & requeening hives on the whole outfit. About the last five years or so been doing this and it keeps your winter loss rate down.

Next month pollen sub.


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## high rate of speed (Jan 4, 2008)

Heck, requeening is like going to Reno,shoot what am I talking about beekeeping in general is a gamble.[JUST A COUPLE OF GALLONS]


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

No, nothing wrong with Kona queens, most are strong and they get are good about filling very large orders in the spring so I have nothing bad to say about them. I just put that out there in case anyone else getting the majority of their queens from them were seeing the same thing.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

I have been seeing more queen problems the last two years since the CCD stuff started. Swarms going queenless, hives going queenless.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

alpha 6 writes:
We are wondering if there is some genetic strain that has gotten into the bees that prevents this

tecumseh replies: well I am by self description a serious sideline (not commercial) but this observation was made some years ago (sometime around the mid 1980's) when I worked for a commercial concern.

at that time I was rearing a goodly number of queen cells and I observed that some hives just didn't ever seem to get around to rearing emergency queen cell. there never really seemed to be any signifcant shortage of pollen or stores in these hives when you would break them apart. it just 'seemed' that they had forgotton how do do this essential task.


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## high rate of speed (Jan 4, 2008)

*Stack em up*

 Starting to get really old.Seems like anymore an outfit has to make up 40-50% more increase to come out even on their hive count for the following year.Still finding queenless hives that made 60+ pounds of honey.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

"Still finding queenless hives that made 60+ pounds of honey."

With no brood to look after, you should expect these hives to make honey. Have you had any problem with swarming from these hives? Requeening every year might help some. What are you finding for a hive population, strong, weak, or marginal? Could robbing be a problem?


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## high rate of speed (Jan 4, 2008)

We requeen at least 60% of the outfit every year with cells and laying queens.Its just that time of the year.Spending thousands of $s and still stacking them up.


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

high rate of speed said:


> :hives that made 60+ pounds of honey.


Well, that about 60lbs more than I made.


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## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

high rate of speed writes:
Seems like anymore an outfit has to make up 40-50% more increase to come out even on their hive count for the following year.

tecumseh replies: I don't really move my bees much, but if I did I would suspect your numbers would be about right.


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

high rate of speed said:


> Starting to get really old.Seems like anymore an outfit has to make up 40-50% more increase to come out even on their hive count for the following year.Still finding queenless hives that made 60+ pounds of honey.


Then I guess all is not lost!


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## rainesridgefarm (Sep 4, 2001)

We just had our yearly picnic and heard everyone saying the same thing. Queen lost no queen cells to replace them. Sold a lot of queens after the picnic this year. Heard from some of the large beekeepers in SW Wis and same issue. Keep lots of queens on had when pulling honey to replace lost ones.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

*Queens*

We started using California queens 2 seasons ago and we are seeing way more supercedure and queenlessness than what we saw when we used Hawaii queens (either Kona or Big Island). I 'm kinda thinking not enough drones at mating time for the supercedure ones. The queenless ones not really sure.

Jean-Marc


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## Tom G. Laury (May 24, 2008)

*Losing queens*

If I had never heard of CCD, and was just looking at my bees with an open mind, I would say I am having some queen problems. To me this is normal, something I've been dealing with forever. If you're not getting after those no.2s all year, you're going to be picking up X % in the fall. 40-50% rebuild every year if I want to stay even. Sometimes I think all there is to having "good bees" is constantly cull out the "bad bees". Doesn't seem to have anything to do with the breeders.


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## Jim Fischer (Jan 5, 2001)

I've seen this with every swarm and every removal I've hived, including several that I gave away to other beekeepers who wanted a swarm or
cutout.

Never had such a high percentage of this.

How much brood do these colonies have?
Sealed? Open? What stage of development?

But by "this" I don't mean mere supercedure or queenlessness, but 
the LACK of an emergency replacement, or supercedure cell.

To me, this means that the queen had to somehow have stopped
laying before she died or showed noticeable signs of needing to be
replaced. There simply were not eggs of appropriate age to use.

...and if you give a swarm to another fellow and it goes queenless,
do you then "owe" him a queen? I'm just sayin'...


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

*Queen for a day.*

Thats what I am seeing also as I pull honey.
ONE hive actually looked and acted queenless. Stingy, running, roaring, no brood, no eggs, etc...
But the others:
You open the hive, no brood, no eggs, no queen, no virgin, no cells, no torn-down cells, just calm quiet contented looking bees walking around on pollen bound comb.
Fairly good populations.
There you are with a frame in your hands saying, "Oh come on! There just has to be a queen in here somewhere; they're way to quiet!"
Newp!
And what is amazing, is how they bounce back with a new queen.
A month later, you would never know anything ever happened.

Right now, we are making up winter nucs.
Unfortunatly, some of them get used prior to winter when queens are no longer available.
So I am getting close to filling all of the nuc boxes.
They sure are a salvation in California almond season!


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## Tom G. Laury (May 24, 2008)

*Winter nucs*

Wow Harry Vanderpool winter sure comes early up there in Oregon!http://www.beesource.com/forums/images/icons/icon12.gif


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

Tom,
Actually, I am about 3 weeks later than last year in making up my winter nucs.
Here are some pictures of the last 2 years nucs:

http://orsba.proboards27.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=732

It would really be nice to carry through at least 24 through this winter that look as good as the 16 that I took to California last spring.


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## florida pollinator (Jul 31, 2006)

I'm sure the lack of correct age eggs play's some part in not getting emergency queens made back,but I personally feel it's been bred out of the bees.
For the last 30 years,queen breeders (and beekeepers) have viewed swarming as evil,and breeders have advertised and selected for low swarming.
Swarming and an emergency cells are two different functions,but I think the making of a queen cell for whatever reason has been altered in the bees genes. A swarming hive is a vigorous hive ,when you start taking out vigor you start altering your future bees, and the instincts which have kept bees alive for ever,in my opinion.
I'm sure others will not agree, but something has changed in that bees for the large part won't and don't make emergency cells like the did 20 or 30 years ago. 
And for the unofficial pole on queens ,I have no problem with Kona queens,any different than any of the others.


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## alpha6 (May 12, 2008)

Dats alot of hay Harry!!! You could feed a herd of cattle with that!


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

"Swarming and an emergency cells are two different functions,but I think the making of a queen cell for whatever reason has been altered in the bees genes. A swarming hive is a vigorous hive ,when you start taking out vigor you start altering your future bees, and the instincts which have kept bees alive for ever,in my opinion."

I guess that would depend on what variety of bee your talking about. I know that swarming hasn't been bred out of the Russian's, and NWC's still seem to swarm fairly often.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

peggjam said:


> I know that swarming hasn't been bred out of the Russian's, and NWC's .....


Yeah, where are these bees that don't swarm? I wanna get some of _them_. Our Italians swarm for no good reason other than it's spring. And yes, we have noticed a larger percentage of colonies that fail to requeen themselves after swarming. Also a larger percentage of caught swarms that go queenless after hiving.
Sheri


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## Gregg (Dec 22, 2003)

Sheri,

I noticed the same this Spring (and I had a lot of swarms) about hives not requeening themselves after swarming.


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## jjgbee (Oct 12, 2006)

The chemical used by some beeks cause drones to be infertil. That may include queen producers. Maybe Hawaian producers with no varroa have a better drone pool. Personally, I gave up the year I got 100 bad queens. They all superseded in 15 days.


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

jjgbee said:


> The chemical used by some beeks cause drones to be infertil. That may include queen producers. Maybe Hawaian producers with no varroa have a better drone pool. Personally, I gave up the year I got 100 bad queens. They all superseded in 15 days.


If you recieved 100 bad queens, something happened in shipping.
It is always possible to get a few bad queens in a box, but the entire lot?
It happens. Shipping is to blame.
I know of a breeder that sends out a battery box with a data logger inside occasionally to his customers. The customer just sends it back and then the data is analysed.
Once in a while, the temperature extremes are quite shocking.
Anyway, the queens that I have got in march from KONA have been excellent over the last few years. Gus really made the difference.


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