If you put a test frame of eggs and young brood into a suspected queenless hive, how reliable are the results? Do they always raise queen cells if queenless?
I put test frames into two of my suspected hives (no queen seen and broodless) and they just ignored it.
Your thoughts most welcome.
My thought is look closer for the queens.
If you're in a dearth right now, they may have just stopped producing brood for a bit.
Quote from: spud on August 30, 2008, 06:58:41 AM
If you put a test frame of eggs and young brood into a suspected queenless hive, how reliable are the results? Do they always raise queen cells if queenless?
I put test frames into two of my suspected hives (no queen seen and broodless) and they just ignored it.
Your thoughts most welcome.
a test frame will tell you if they are queenless or not, I always use them when questioning a hive for queen right
This year i have had trouble getting my quenelles hives to make emergency queen cells -the troublesome ones are the ones that go queenless and while they still have a chance to make a cell-with young larvae they dont-sometimes queen stops laying for a number of reasons and something happens to her -then they dont have the young eggs or larvae to make a cell-I always put in frames of brood -that keeps them from going laying worker-(brood pheromone)-and also give them young larvae to make a cell -sometimes it takes up to four trys with young larvae to get them to make a cell -this is becoming a common problem and many believe we are breeding these queens so they dont swarm -people find that a good trait to have in a queen -but on the other hand it seams to make the bees lose some of there inherited nature of survival-so they are becoming more difficult to induce into emergency -or even superseder cells -I can tell if a colony is queenless just by lifting the lid and by the sound of the hive ( usually ;) ) but there is nothing wrong with a test frame but it is not absolute- 8-) RDY-B
Well, convinced they were queenless i bought a cuople of queens.... you guessed it when i checked the other day before introducing my new queens I found queens in both hive, so at least on this occasion I should have listened to what the bees were trying to tell me!
spud your not the first this happened to, most order new queens then install just to find her dead in a few days, I had one hive that had no sign of a queen or cells, I put in 2 test frames a week apart and they drew nothing, no signs of laying worker or queen, it went like this for about a month and all the capped cells had hatched hatched, by this time I raised a few queens cells to add to this hive and make a few nuc's and I checked it before adding a cell and low and behold the bottom deep had 3 frames full of eggs and larva on both sides and then I found her, big pretty queen. sometimes patience pays off.
now you can make you a few nuc's to winter with those queens you bought. good luck!!