My swarm is a pig!!!!!

[Cindi]

8 days since I caught the swarm.  The swarm was hived with 10 deep frames of drawn foundation and a super of foundation on top.  Since that day, the Saturday before last, they have been using 1 gallon of 2:1 sugar syrup daily.  I thought for surely that there was a robbing situation occurring, so I put on an entrance reducer. Nope.  Still using 1 gallon a day.  Narry a sign of robbing.  Two days ago I opened the opening in the inner cover and covered the inner cover with wax cappings from last years honey harvest.  There is pollen remanents along with the honey.  I had frozen the cappings, thinking that one day they may come in useful.  They did.  Despite the large amounts of cappings, and an enormous pollen patty, they are still consuming 1 gallon sugar syrup each of these days.  What the devil!!!!!

Is this normal?  I presume it is, the bees know best, right.  But holy crow!!!!!

On Friday, I looked this colony through and through and could not find the queen.  So I let things bee.  They show no sign of queenlessness.  Probably one of the most calmest of colonies that I have experienced.  They were so busy doing whatever bees do, they barely moved from their work on the comb (whatever they were doing).  I would have thought after 6 days I would surely have caught a glimpse of this lovely woman that allows the girls to govern her life.  I will look again tomorrow and see is she is present.  If I still cannot find her, then I will have to take extreme measures and really disrupt their life    But I really need to find out really soon what this girl is up to.  I am sure that she is simply elusive 

Have a wonderful day, love our life we're livin'.  Cindi

[TwT]

ok but just remember, she is not going to be that big ole queen you used to look at, she is slim down now and once she starts laying again you will fill back out, keep the feed going and she should be fine... only thing I would watch for is when they stop drawing comb and start filling brood area with syrup...

[Erik T]

I had a hive that I babied and feed 1:1 during august due to the extreme drought and heat wave we were having.  They sucked down 1 gallon a day for 2 weeks.

I wish I had limited their consumption because they did a p-poor job of drawing foundation, plus they stashed all that crummy sugar water.  Now we have a decent fall flow going on and I think they would be better off with that.    Darned school of hard knocks.

That said, I'd probably keep feeding your girls due to the locale and time of year.

[steve]

Cindi, after hiving that swarm was there ever any evidents that there was a gueen at work ie, have you ever seen eggs or brood?.....At least in this part of the country, as mention earlier, a hive can become honey bound (syrup bound) espically with a young newly mated queen and a lot of ready made draw comb and an unlimited amount of sugar syrup.....just a thought
                                                            Steve

[Cindi]

Ted, Steve.  Hmmm..good food for thought.  I gave them a super of drawn foundation and the second box with foundation only.

I checked for the queen laying last week, about Wednesday, maybe Thursday (5 days after swarm I caught on the Saturday).  I didn't even see the queen.  I looked again the next day, didn't see the queen, but the hive was so calm, I am sure she was hiding.  I will be checking closely today, if weather permits.  It is cloudy and we could have some rain, rats, we don't really need rain yet.  Had lots two days ago.

I will check for sure to ensure the brood nest is not full of sugar syrup and I will see what they are doing with all this sugar syrup.  They may be using it for energy mostly for drawing comb, but then, maybe they are just storing it, we'll see.  Have a wonderful day, lovin' this life we're livin'.  Cindi