[WayneW]

In early May i hived a #3 package. By the numbers in the hive currently, i am getting the feeling that this hive will not be near strong enough to make it through winter. The brood nest never did get past 1 medium box, and shows no sign of getting better (stronger). The queen was a mated Italian and at first, seemd to do great, however watching this hive lately, even with feed on, the numbers just arent climbing.

Any suggestions? I'm thinking new queen.......... different breed perhaps?

 

[riverrat]

what does the queens brood pattern look like. If you are feeding is the hive getting honey bound and got no room to lay. Sounds like there may have been a possiblity of swarming. has the weather been hot and or a dearth on queens will slow down durring these time since the hive doesnt need the numbers. A lot of time queens get blammed for things out of there control and get the axe only to have another queen introduced that will have the same problem. Before you requeen you need to find out exactly why they are not building.

 

[rast]

Lets use five hives I have here at my house as an example of what riverrat was saying. All italians, two hives have different genectics from the other three. The three that the queens have common genetics are still laying like crazy, the other two that are kin have slowed way down on laying. The last two are smarter than the first three because we are going into our summer dearth.

 

[barry42001]

While slowing down during a darth of nectar is normal, don't ya kinda want the queen to pick it up a bit/ lot with fall flow--new bees for overwintering.

 

[notaclue]

Mine have slowed way down also. They are not honey bound, as a matter of fact two are trying to starve and the others are fine with stores. My russians and ferals have dropped brood to about a little larger than the size of a baseball which after watching the last two years is normal. Numbers are great and they seem to lay just enough to keep the population steady, but as soon as the aster, goldenrod or anything that will have a large supply the queens will kick in again. They have stopped drawing comb about 2-3 weeks ago and they were slow then.

I always seem to go into the winter with varying cluster sizes, from volleyball to take up almost a whole deep brood box.