It wouldn't surprise me if you guys are starting to wonder if there isn't something very 'dodgy' in the water supply around these parts, for here is yet another story about a hive exhibiting very odd behaviour.
This one is completely the reverse of the 'swarming by instalments' hive, where the bees are active outside the box, but fairly inactive inside it - for in contrast - these bees are simply refusing to leave the hive.
The story starts very early this year with a swarm where the queen turned out to be a drone-layer, a situation which persisted for weeks despite numerous attempts to rectify the situation. Eventually, the bees were shaken out, the queen killed, and a 'test frame' installed, with the resulting virgin now awaiting a laying check.
Just after shaking those bees out, a very fine AMM queen arrived from Jon, and I needed to quickly create a suitable nuc for her introduction. Having just killed their duff queen, I knew that colony to be queenless, so I just helped myself to a frame of those bees. In retrospect, that was to be a huge mistake.
The introduction went without a hitch, and five days later I did a direct release, which again went without a hitch. But on inspection 7 days later, not only was the queen not laying, she was - for all intents and purposes - being completely ignored by the workforce, and was just wandering around looking very unloved.
The other curious thing was that I'd not seen a single bee ever leave this hive. Sure, during the inspection half-a-dozen bees took to the air, but as soon as the covers went back on, they scooted back inside, not to re-appear ...
I eventually figured that it was the colony with the problem, and not the queen - for they had lived all of their lives in a dysfunctional setting, and had never witnessed a queen laying properly. This may sound far-fetched, but I began wondering if such a protracted abnormal experience could possibly over-ride instinctive behaviour ? Anyway, that was my thinking, so I helped myself to a frame of emerging brood from a different hive and installed that - hoping it would give this problem hive a kick-start. Which it did, and on inspection today - 14 days after release - not only has the queen begun laying (phew - relief ), but the youngsters are making a great fuss of their queen, and so normal behaviour has been restored. Except that the original bees are still refusing to leave the hive ! But - as the colony has plenty of stores, this doesn't present an immediate problem, and anyway those cranky bees won't be living for ever.
LJ
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