Hi
Would anyone be able to supply me with a couple of topbar brood frames? Alternatively I can cutout a langstroth frame to fit.
My colony is not doing well with the current queen not laying any eggs for months. I am hoping to get a couple of brood frames hopefully with larvae to kickstart the colony.
Comments
Had a look in the hive this arvo and there a few capped brood but not enough to get excited about. I am going to try and transplant a queen cell from and langstroth hive a insert it into the top bar comb. I was trying to get brood frames from Paul as well as Tim from all you can eat gardens but no joy.
I am getting a langstroth hive put together and when that builds up will split into a topbar. I was hoping to get brood frame with viable larvae to put in the hive but will probably have to use my own resources for now and have a crack at reviving the colony.
At least in the near future I will have two colonies as added insurance for this type of scenario.
Thanks for advice.
My understanding is that worker bees only have a life span of about 6 weeks (however, I did read that they can live longer when they are not foraging as much ie winter) so wouldn't your hive be extinct already if the queen was not laying at all? I am very much a novice too at top bar and if my hive was bigger, you could have one of mine, but I don't think I have very much yet. I bought my bees and hive from Paul Wood from Brisbane Backyard bees. I'm sure he would be able to supply you with some and he does Top Bar hives so they would insert right in to your hive. Hope this helps.
If the Queen is not laying, the hive will die out unless something is done now. The Queen can (and should) be killed and a new mated Queen introduced now if you want the hive to survive. The bees cannot make a Queen unless there is egg-laying happening now. Workers in desperation sometimes make a 'Queen' from a worker but she's not mated so only produces drone eggs. If the current Queen is not laying then there is no time to lose.
Sounds like you are doing all you can to learn about keeping your bees.
It is odd that your workers haven't produced another Queen themselves. But then I'm no expert.
Thanks Lissa, I have just started attending the North side beekeepers association and will join up next year. The recent meeting I attended was well packed and hopefully next year I'll get a mentor.
In the meantime, I can get a hold of a queen cell and transfer that into the topbar hive for the queen to hatch. The idea is that the new queen will hopefully dispose the none performing queen and start laying heaps of eggs. The issue is I need to build up numbers and by introducing brood frames I can boost the numbers fairly quickly while waiting for the queen to start laying.
I did try to source a mated queen but have not had any luck. In any event I hope to get more bees but this time for a Langstroth hive and possibly use the brood from that.
This and education I'm developing in any case
Might be some bigger problem. Advice from some experts wouldn't go astray. Do you belong to a bee club Stephen?
Kill the current queen and they should make a new one.
Or buy a queen?