I did my first hive inspection today and I couldn't see the queen or any eggs. Which frightened me! So i checked the front of the hive and found this body.
Is this my queen? :( :oops: I am very new at this so I could(hopefully) have looked and missed seeing the queen or eggs.
(http://www.natural-edge.com/test/bee1.jpg)
(http://www.natural-edge.com/test/bee2.jpg)
(http://www.natural-edge.com/test/bee3.jpg)
It is possibly a queen, if so a virgin. There is just something about the form of that bee that doesn't ring right for either a true queen or a true worker. There is the possibility that it is the carcass of a laying worker and hyperloid (I think that's the right work) queen.
Some other possibilities:
virgin queen loose in the package and the bee chose the mated queen.
Eggs are hard to see, so is the queen to the unpracticed eye so seeing no evidence is not definitive.
If you have resources for a frame of brood put one that has a wide range of brood ages from egg to larvae in the hive. You will know the queen status from what the bees do with the eggs or just hatched eggs in the frame.
Wait 10 days and take another look-see, some packaged queens are slow to get off the mark.
If nothing in 10 days then Panic!! = )
Doesn't look like a queen to me.
Thanks VERY much for the replies!!! I don't think it's the queen now that I have done a little research and talked with a couple of people. I am going to go back next Sunday/Monday and see if I can see any eggs or capped brood. I talked with a local beekeeper here in Utah and he gave me a wealth of information! Between him and all your replies I feel a lot less stress/worried.
So thank you again for the great replies...this forum ROCKS!
bxmas13. You haven't been officially welcomed to our forum yet. So, welcome. You have already found this to be a great place for getting answers to your questions. Those were nice pictures, by the way. Glad to hear that most people didn't think it was the queen. Yeah!!! Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself in the greetings forum, and update your profile to show where you live. That helps an awful lot when people are responding to your questions. Have a beautiful and most wonderful day, Cindi
Well I went out to check the hive today and found the dreaded drone cells all over the place. Apparentely my queen died off. :(
What do you guys/gals suggest I do? I have a hive full of workers still and a bunch of capped drone cells. I am disappointed but not too surprised.
Does the gentleman you talked to have a spare Queen/Nuc to sell or willing to give/sell you a frame with newly laid eggs that your bees could use to raise a new queen. :)
Were there any worker brood cells at all??? Just curious. Sometimes they make a lot of drone brood first when they get started. At least my really good queen did that in the beginning. Now she is great.
No worker brood. :( It was spotty all over with drone cells.
I could ask the guy for a frame of eggs, he is a great guy.
>What do you guys/gals suggest I do? I have a hive full of workers still and a bunch of capped drone cells.
The question is do you have a drone laying queen or laying workers. The answer lies in how many eggs there are per cell, and how they are in the cell (bottom side etc.).
If you have a drone layer you will need to dispose of her. If you have laying workers you will have to suppress them with open brood.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm
The legs don't look right. I notice queens seem to have a special set of back legs that allow them to maneuver their abdomen in and out of cells. Though this one looks a little big to be a worker, perhaps she's just full of nectar or drown.