Ok, got to thinking and that can be bad . So you catch a swarm , buy a nuc or a newbee reports this about a package. Checked on the bees and all looked great two weeks ago (or even a month ago) with a very good brood pattern. But now the brood pattern is kinda spotty with empty cells shotguned throught out, almost 25% of the cells open, what should I do? Normally we say the queen is failing and to replace her. But if the hive is not raising a replacement queen could it be that we have a queen/bees with a hygenic trait and they are just cleaning out larva with mites/shb or w. moth brood? So could we be jumping the gun and killing a good queen and her traits? I guess I'm wondering if we are acting to fast. Jim
has hot as it has been i would ride it out to see what happens. Do they have plenty of stores. at worst you can combine it with a stonger hive in winter and split back in the spring. If it turns out to be a ailing queen. but my guess its the heat
with the main early and mid summer nectar flows shutting down and the fall nectar flows not in yet, a degree of brood reduction would be in order I would think anyway. With a now somewhat limited resources comming in, why maintain huge brood patterns, and deplete stored reserves that may or may not be replaced with fall flows. Barry
Barry,what are you talking about,didn't you know that scientist say that animals can't reason. :mrgreen: Jack
Jack you need to have a talk with my wife who 1) is very much a scientist and 2) is pretty well convince that not only do animals reason they reason at a quite high level.
My experience is that after the full comb brood-laying of the spring, the pattern of laying becomes less organized in the summer. Maybe it's because as the cells are used, the bees don't prepare them for a new set of laying in the same orderly manner. Maybe if you would put a clean built comb in the middle of the brood area you'd find the queen to fill it up in an orderly way, as in the spring.
