Today I saw the new queen in my swarmed hive. It had been queenless after the rest of the girls swarmed. There were 4 queen cells that had been opened a week or so ago. So apparently her ladyship has successfully been courted by a great number of beaus. She is already filling out but is yet to start laying. Should do so in a few days I hope.
The queen in the swarm hive is laying and now has growing larva (non capped yet) so it would appear that the original hive went queenless at the time of the swarm.
Both hives are bringing in nectar like it is going out of fashion :-D :-D
Mick
Good for you! I was very anxious while waiting for my swarm hive to produce a queen. Then I got even more anxious waiting for her to start laying! It is such a huge relief to finally see eggs and brood! My swarm hive will be having a population explosion any day now with the first new bees coming out of their cells. Good luck!!!
Alan
Makes you feel good doesnt it when you see something like that work out.
I would like to see the nuc I made up with 2 frames of eggs, brood and queen cells from the same hive show the same development. The brood have all hatched, the queen cells have opened around the same time so I am hoping to see a novice queen parading herself really soon.
I am really glad however to get 2 queens from that old queen as the hive was just a great boomer.. even queenless they were bringing in nectar and pollen like there was no tomorrow.
Mick
Is there any period while a hive is raising a new queen that you should leave them alone or can you go ahead and make regular (weekly) inspections if you want?
I have a hive (from an ongoing trap out) that had capped queen cells 13 days ago and I'm itching to look around, but I don't want to cause a problem.
I'm a first year bee keeper so I know that I'm probably over cautious, but I'm still having to curb my enthusiasm for pestering them every few days.
When I put a queen cell in my hive I was told to stay out of the hive until after she was due to hatch and mate. I did and when I did inspect I had a laying queen. Its probably a lot safer to not open the hive and risk something going wrong.
Most excellent--Congratulations!!
I had a hive swarm, and then we made a split from it and another hive for form a third. The new split hive has a queen, which I have not found, but had eggs the last time I checked. What a great feeling!!
Can't wait to get back into my original swarmed/split hive and find out if they raised up a queen. They, too, were packing in the nectar like crazy. Now I've been seeing pollen come in so I have great hopes.
Hope your hives continue to thrive!