# First Year Disaster -- Advice About How To Proceed Now?



## Dakotaloo (May 6, 2016)

First year beekeeper here. 

Started with a 5-frame nuc from local supplier, installed into an 8-frame deep. Unfortunately, no queen on arrival, but hive rallied and successfully generated a new queen fairly quickly. During good flow, bees built their own comb on 3 foundationless frames in first deep. Added second deep, and again, good buildout on foundationless frames. Healthy brood pattern, some honey storage on outermost frames. But when I then added a medium super with foundationless frames on top of the second deep, instead of building down from the top of the frame, my bees built burr comb at the bottom of the box, up from the top of the second deep, over an area of three frames, locking the boxes and frames together. 

Went in to clean that all out and reset the medium super with frames sporting a strip of wax across the top of each one to encourage top-down building. I fear I may have caused the queen's death at that point (about three weeks ago.) Since then I have seen no egg-laying, no larvae, and almost all the capped brood that was in place three weeks ago has hatched, with no replacement. I did, a little over a week ago, see two queen cells mid-frame in the bottom box that seemed quite mature, and heard what I believed to be queen piping. Thought it all might work out again, but then...

Massive robbing attacks over the past week, and based on my inspection today, I'm sure any queen that hatched has been killed. No eggs, no larvae, lots and lots and lots of empty brood space. The robbing waxes and wanes -- I've closed down the entrance to a single bee space, covered with a wet sheet. It calms things down and they seem to go back to normal, but then the robbing starts up again. At this point, the only way to get a new queen would be to order one, but I don't think it makes sense -- there are no baby bees in the pipeline, and the robber bees are already on the verge of overwhelming the home bees. (I can tell because my bees look very different than the robber bees: small yellow striped ones vs. big dark-bodied furrier ones) So I have decided to call the colony a loss for this year, and harvest what honey I can before it gets robbed out, preparing the frames, etc for next year.

So that's where I'm looking for advice. I have two deeps of 8 frames each, no eggs, no larvae. Probably 4 or 5 of the 16 frames are solid honey frames. The rest have honey, nectar and pollen cells around the edges. How do I proceed in such a way that I end up with clean, storable equipment to start over with next year? How can I perform an orderly harvest, using the bees I have (and I suppose, the robbers) to help clean the equipment as I go?

So sad to loss my girls this way..feeling very dis-spirited at the moment.

Thanks for any help you can offer...

Dakotabee


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## tech.35058 (Jul 29, 2013)

two QC mature a week ago, don't give up yet. I hope you had anti-robbing measures in place before they emerged, but a couple of weeks to see eggs would be normal-ish.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

If you had queen cells you may have a virgin queen. You can shrink the hive to a interior volume that the remaining bees can patrol. I don't see how a 5 frame nuc can grow into a Vermont winter, however. A live queen and retinue in September would have real value, and the nuc could be sold to someone hoping to rescue their hive. The key here is having the volume of the hive packed --- lots of empty real estate will get robbed more easily.

Honey frames are polished dry in an afternoon. They can be then stored easily - wax moths ignore honey only frames.
I store frames with air space in cold, unheated locations. Brood frames will be attacked by wax moths when the temperatures are above freezing. Wax Moth BT and mothballs both work. It is perfectly acceptable, as soon as freezing weather sets in, to take mothballed combs out of their air tight storage, and let them air for the remaining cold days of winter.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

If you have this option here is what I would do next.
Go find a local beekeeper to buy 2 deep hive full of bees.
Then donate these rob out frames to feed the hive. Of course, the
original bees will not rob out its new hive. The robber bees will have to
fight this rather strong hive to get in. Use proper introduction method so that
the older bees will not kill off the new queen.


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## Dakotaloo (May 6, 2016)

Can you say more about proper introduction method? Not familiar with adding other bees to the hive...


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## Dakotaloo (May 6, 2016)

JWChesnut said:


> If you had queen cells you may have a virgin queen. You can shrink the hive to a interior volume that the remaining bees can patrol. I don't see how a 5 frame nuc can grow into a Vermont winter, however. A live queen and retinue in September would have real value, and the nuc could be sold to someone hoping to rescue their hive. The key here is having the volume of the hive packed --- lots of empty real estate will get robbed more easily.
> 
> "Honey frames are polished dry in an afternoon." Sorry, I don't understand. What does this mean? Frames that held honey, from which the honey has been extracted leaving the comb intact, will be cleaned up by the bees in an afternoon? Or something else....?
> 
> "They can be then stored easily - wax moths ignore honey only frames." I assume this means honey-only frames that have been EMPTIED of honey, right? Or are you suggesting storing the frames complete with honey in them? Can that be done? With what provisions?


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## Dakotaloo (May 6, 2016)

tech.35058 said:


> two QC mature a week ago, don't give up yet. I hope you had anti-robbing measures in place before they emerged, but a couple of weeks to see eggs would be normal-ish.


I didn't realize that you should put "anti-robbing measures" in place when waiting for a new queen to emerge. What should I have done?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Different queens have different queen scent or queen pheromone.
In a queen right hive if you just drop another queen in there, either a
virgin or a mated queen, she will get balled to death by the worker bees.
That is why we caged the new queen inside and use a candy plug so that the
bees can release the queen over time. 
Because I did not use the proper queen introduction method, many queens got
killed during the process. What I think and in the reality world has a big
gap. Luckily for me I know how to make my own queens otherwise I'm out of the
beekeeping hobby a long time ago. That is why you should learn the proper technique first.
There are other method to use for a proper queen introduction like using a
Laidlaw cage. Without mastering the queen intro. technique many new queens will die.
The queen cell also has its own method of introduction into the mating nuc hive.


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## tech.35058 (Jul 29, 2013)

Dakotaloo said:


> I didn't realize that you should put "anti-robbing measures" in place when waiting for a new queen to emerge. What should I have done?


*****
**** keep in mind, I am a southern bee keeper, flying season for my bees is early march til mid or late October!
****
What you "should have done" is not necessarily the same as what some one else should do, each case is different, & each bee keeper may not have the same goals for the hives they manage.
After my first year, in which I purchase 3 nucs, got robbed out 4 times, queens disappeared a couple of times, one of the many lessons was always keep a robbing screen in place.
starter splits, & mating nucs are tiny, thus easy for a larger colony, or all the larger colonies in the beeyard, to rob them out. So, I recommend robbing screens, except when you want outside bees to find their way in, such as when shaking out a hive so the bees can be adopted by other hives.
When you have a virgin queen on mating flights, if they come out through the robber screen, they can find their way back in, but if they are out flying around, partying, while you are installing the robber screen, then when they come back, they can not find their way back in. if they took orientation flights yesterday, & you add the screen this morning, well maybe they will re orient ....
Some one made the comment that it is typical to lose 25% of virgins on the mating flight, so when I see QC, I tend to split, to enhance my chances for a successful returned mated queen.
Decreasing the size of the hive means there is less comb to patrol, so more bees are available to guard the front door. The down side is that if it is too crowded, the bees may just abscond all together, or create swarms to fly away.
As some one said, what you "should"do now depends on how many bees you have now, & what you wnt to try to accomplish. shaking them out to let/force them to beg into other hives is one option, splitting them ( if you have enough) & providing them with mated queens & resources ( syrup & patties) to have multiple nucs to try to overwinter, is another option maybe.
What do you have to lose?, and what are you willing to invest in the effort?
I beekeeper local to you would be able to advise you on things like how long your season is, & how long you can feed syrup before switching to sugar cakes, what your flying season is, etc.
Good Luck! CE


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