Beekeeping Forums banner

Odd situation on installing a package

2K views 12 replies 10 participants last post by  efmesch 
#1 · (Edited)
Hello, my first post here. I am returning to bee keeping after 30+ years and just installed a 3 lb bee package with queen into a hive, and ran into an odd situation that I have not heard described before.

The install happened yesterday. It went smoothly at the time, other than I did not get as many bees as I would have liked shaken out into the hive before closing it up. I thought I left maybe a cup or two of bees in the package. I left the screened package open and right by the hive, thinking the stragglers would find their way into the hive. Well they did not. At the end of the day yesterday there were a 2-3 cups of bees, in two clusters inside the package box. Overnight lows were too cold to leave then outside (25F or so), so I closed the box and took it into the garage overnight. This AM once it warmed up to flying temps, I moved the package back out to in front of the hive, but so far, no signs that these bees still in the package are moving to the hive. A few fly in and out of the package, but the cluster size has not changed much (the two package clusters merged into one overnight while in the garage).

Activity in the hive seems normal. There is good traffic in and out of the reduced entrance hive (still snow on the ground here, so not much nectar flow or pollen yet but soon), but I am feeding sugar syrup and a pollen sub patty in the hive, so they should be OK.

My big question is, what is going on with these bees in the package and what should I do about it?

A few possibilities I've thought of are:

A. The or a queen is somehow still in the package and that is why this cluster of bees won't leave. I did check and put the queen cage in the hive, but perhaps there was a second queen in there, or perhaps the queen got out of her cage (I am not that good and could have mistaken her in the cage, I just confirmed there was one bee in there).

However if this was the case, and there was no queen in the hive, I would have expected the hive bees to quickly abandon the hive and go back into the package with their queen. No? Perhaps a few bees have gone back to the package, but the package total is still about 3 cups of bees, no where near the total 3#.

If the only queen is in the package then I need to get her into the hive. Tomorrow, after 2 days, I was going to open the hive, check the queen cage and look for eggs/comb. If I don't see signs of a queen then perhaps this is it. Then the question is how to get the queen and this cluster into the hive and have them accepted. Can I just shake them in, or do I need to do something more like merging two hives?


B. If it's just some workers in the package, then I suppose I can leave them be or try to get them into the hive. Question becomes if adding all these bees at a later date more harmful then their absence?

C. Somehow there were two queens in my package, the one in the cage and one free with the workers (have heard this happens sometimes). If this is the case, then I don't want to introduce this second queen and her cluster to the hive, which already has a queen.

An additional piece of info which may be useful, the bees had started building comb in the package during transit. Not much, a few inches up against the feeder can. It was mostly destroyed as I took the feeder out. However I noticed that the remaining package bees have fixed up that comb and added a bit to it, although not many are on it. Just in case this says anything...

Seems like there are several possibilities of what may be going on, and probably more that I have not thought of. I will know a bit more tomorrow, when I open up the hive, but even then I am not sure it will be obvious what is going on. So I have a few questions about this:

1. Anyone have any good idea of what the situation here really is?

2. Given that I am essentially a beginner again (and wasn't that good at picking out the queen 30 years ago either), I probably cannot recognize if I really have a queen in the hive now. Any high probability ways of deducing this? Does the fact that most all of the bees have remained in the hive instead of returning to the package mean there's a queen in there?

3. If I should try to add these bees/queen to the hive, what is the best way to do so? I can wait for them to join voluntarily, but given our cold night temps they may not survive long enough. I could shake them out in front of the hive? I could pull the top cover and shake them into the empty top box (over the feeder and inner cover)? Something else?


Thoughts and opinions welcomed.
 
See less See more
#2 ·
I would take the cage apart and blow my breath on the cluster (they don't like that) they will spread out from the cluster and you can look for a queen. If you see one? she is probably a virgin queen, myself i would go with the caged queen, do the extra queen in and shake the workers on top of the frames and take the part they were clustered on and destroy it.They will die anyway if you don't. Jack
 
#3 ·
steve, WELCOME to the forum!

" I did check and put the queen cage in the hive, but perhaps there was a second queen in there, or perhaps the queen got out of her cage (I am not that good and could have mistaken her in the cage, I just confirmed there was one bee in there)."

the queen that came in the cage, were there attendants? or was the queen by herself? was there queen candy, and a cork or lid? she can't get out of a cage with these in place, cork or lid. (benton cage vx jz bz cage). did you remove the cork or lid when you put her in the hive?

you may have an additional queen as jack said, normally i would just poke through the cluster to find her, but you said you were not to good at finding a queen, and virgin queens, they are smaller. so either do what jack said or do you have a queen excluder? if you do, remove the inner cover of your hive, lightly mist the bees and top frames of the hive with 1:1 syrup, place the queen excluder on top, mist the bees in the cage, either take it apart, shake or brush the bees out over the excluder into the hive, if you have another queen she will not fall through the excluder.

if you find a virgin queen, like jack said, i would go with the caged queen and pinch the virgin.

also, it may be your bees are simply clustering because they don't know where 'home' really is. they are disoriented. you moved them and separated them from the original shake because of your temps. bees remember the last place they were, and that wooden cage is it. if i did not find another queen, (from poking around) i would lightly mist the bees in the hive and the cage and shake or brush them out into the hive.
 
#4 ·
Hello Steve. Welcome to the friendliest bee forum around. Sounds like the queen is in the hive box, since most of the bees stayed there. Don't keep the small cluster that stayed in the shipping box there for very long, they can forget that they were part of the hive and you'll have multiple fights, as the bees in the hive think they are facing robber bees. Sounds like you're doing the same thing that me, and probably most folks starting out did-over analyzing things. I would just shake the rest of them into the box and close it up for a week, other than quickly checking their syrup feeder. After a week or so, go back in and check how things are going. Good luck and keep us posted.
 
#5 ·
I agree with the advice already given and would add one thing. In your post you say the install happened yesterday, and that tomorrow you will look to see if the queen was released and "look for eggs/comb".
Just look to see if she's released, and then close it up. Don't start rooting around in there looking for eggs, it's probably way too early. Give her a few days to settle in.
 
#8 ·
Welcome to the forum and back into beekeeping. Yyou said that there is snow still on the ground and the temp is is cool. In cool weather bees will cluster in clumps to keep warm with or with out a queen. Spray the remaining bees in the package with syrup and place them in a empty super over the inner cover and let them rejoin the hive. I doubt that you are dealing with 2 queens but that the temp was cool enough that the bees were clustering rather than fanning pheromones to attract the remaining bees to enter the hive from the package. you should have used Iddee's method for installing a package and the temp would not have been as much as a factor.
 
#9 ·
Well situation solved. I put the package out again this morning in front of the hive and was waiting for the wind to die down before opening the hive to do my checking. When I checked back in an hour, I noticed the package box was mostly empty and a bunch of bees were on the front of the hive. Over the next hour or so the bees entered the hive (or so it seemed, I wasn't standing there watching the whole time).

The only thing I can think of which made a difference is today was about 10F warmer than the last few days, up to almost 70F. So those who thought these remnant bees were just too cold to make it to the hive were probably right.

Once again, the bees took care of things without my help (well other than bringing them indoors overnight).

Thanks for all the help. Glad to have found this forum!
 
#10 ·
you should have used Iddee's method for installing a package and the temp would not have been as much as a factor.
That's what I did with the package I just installed. Weather wasn't an issue here, but I tried Iddee's method which is placing the package in the deep and letting the bees vacate on their own accord. Then remove the screened container later. I think this stresses the bees less and you're not shaking dead bees into your deep. Compared to last year, the bees appeared to organize themselves quicker and were happily orienting and fanning the entrance in no time.
 
#11 ·
Thanks litefoot for explaining Iddee's method. I did a search for it, but had not run into it yet (Iddee has quite a few posts).

I had heard of that way to introduce the bees, but folks around here were concerned that it requires an extra trip into the hive brood chamber to remove the package and add in frames, and their consensus was that extra disturbance was more stress than the shake and pour method. Sounds like that is not the case however. Think I will give Iddee's method a try next package I have to install.
 
#12 ·
steve,

"I put the package out again this morning in front of the hive and was waiting for the wind to die down before opening the hive to do my checking. When I checked back in an hour, I noticed the package box was mostly empty and a bunch of bees were on the front of the hive. Over the next hour or so the bees entered the hive (or so it seemed, I wasn't standing there watching the whole time).
The only thing I can think of which made a difference is today was about 10F warmer than the last few days, up to almost 70F. So those who thought these remnant bees were just too cold to make it to the hive were probably right.


when we are new to keeping bees, shaking bees from a package into a hive can be a joyous but daunting experience especially when the bees don't cooperate....:lol:
we don't know what to do. they don't want to leave the package. for those of us who live in climates that are quite funky on temps, we can't always leave a package set next to the hive and expect the bees to move out before temps drop. i am in one of those climates as well. weather is a great factor. sometimes i can leave the package set, but most times not. don't be afraid to take a side off the package, and gently scoop/shake/brush the bees into the hive. you won't hurt them. i like to get them in there, and let them beee....i think sometimes we overthink this....just my HO...:grin:

"Once again, the bees took care of things without my help (well other than bringing them indoors overnight). "

bees are incredible aren't they?! well, and so are we......:lol:
 
#13 ·
Steve777, Welcome to the forum. :hi:
I enjoyed the thoroughness of the description of your predicament and could't help giving a chuckle at gunsmith's comment, " probably most folks starting out did-over analyzing things.":frustrated:
Don't feel bad, no one is born a beekeeper and we all had to go through those first steps of learning the art and gain our confidence.
You're gonna do GREAT! Before you know it you'll be filled with confidence and be giving advice from your own experiences.
Really glad to have you with us.
:grin: Keep us posted about how things progress.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top