BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Worker or drone brood?

  • Beginners forum, ask beekeeping related questions and get help from other experienced beekeepers. Please use the Search Feature please to avoid duplicated threads
Beginners forum, ask beekeeping related questions and get help from other experienced beekeepers. Please use the Search Feature please to avoid duplicated threads
 #11451  by Andy_mac
 14 Jul 2021, 17:25
Hi everyone,
I performed a Demaree to try to prevent swarming eaelier in the year. I couldn't find the queen, so I shook al of the bees into the new brood box and filled it with new foundation (i didn't have any drawn frames). The bees didn't draw any of the comb in the bottom brood box, which I thought was bit odd.
Once the brood had emerged in the top BB I moved soe of the frames down, ater week, there were lots of eggs, the vast majority were single eggs at the bottom of cells, but I spotted a few cells with more than one egg (all on the bottom of the cell).
The laying pattern looks good my beginners eyes, and the capping are flush with the comb surface, but I'd like a second opinion, hence posting pics of the frames here.

Image
Image
Image
Image
 #11452  by NigelP
 14 Jul 2021, 19:21
Shes fine. No worries there.
The picture are a great an help (more than you can know). You can see whats going on in another persons hive rather than rely on a written description.
 #11455  by Patrick
 15 Jul 2021, 08:58
I find phone photos really useful too - even for my own bees. Take a pic and enlarge later at your leisure..

Just a thought Andymac - there are no signs of any stored nectar on the frames you photographed. What with drawing out wax and raising new brood they may need a bit of help with some feed? I don’t know about weather around you but I had to feed nucs recently. We are due a week of better weather here which should help.
 #11457  by Caroline
 15 Jul 2021, 10:06
I agree with Patrick re feeding. Judging by photos start feeding now.

I have one colony that was fine for stores and then last Friday found they had none whatsoever and so are feeding them.

It's proving to be a tricky year, perhaps more so for beginners.
 #11475  by MickBBKA
 18 Jul 2021, 02:22
It looks like a real rubbish drawn out frame so there will be lots of drone brood mixed in where the cells are damaged and drawn out as drone cells. The majority of the frame looks like worker brood so the queen is fine, just needs some better comb to work with.
 #11489  by Andy_mac
 19 Jul 2021, 10:22
Thanks for the replies, its good to know that its not drone laying workers, shaking them out'd be so dishartening.
On the stores front, when I performed the demaree, the bees stored a lot of nectar in the 'top' brood box (I can see why super are smaller after hefting a BB of stores!)
There's a super on top of the BB which is half full and has some capped honey.
I tried to move the old BB under the new 'laying' BB, but the bees really didn't like that and let me know (my leg is still swollen from the sting)
Any tips on how can I "encourage" the bees to move the nectar into the super so I can remove the old brood box?
 #11490  by AdamD
 19 Jul 2021, 12:10
Putting the stores-filled brood box under the brooding-brood box should result in the stores being moved upwards. If your bees are ratty, it's always best to manipulate the colony when there are lots of flyers out of the hive - I am sure you know this!
If you have a spare floor, you could put that by the existing floor, place the stores-filled brood box on that and then lift the brooding box straight on top, followed by the queen excluder and super(s). [If you can lift on one go with the super on, that would minimise the bee escape, otherwise the excluder can stay on top of the brood box unless you need to inspect it]. In this way, the process is easier (swifter) than moving the brooding box to one side for a while whilst placing the stores-filled one on the hive floor and having the bees swirling about for that time. The bees will easily re-orientate to the new location just a couple of feet away.