Well got a new queen intalled her three days ago. The other bees released her and today they dragged her out of the hive dead. Anyone have any idea why this would happen? Bare in mind the is no sign of brood or queen cells anywhere in the hive I have been completely through it twice.
Damien :-x
Perhaps a newly mated queen that has not begun laying?Did this hive swarm recently?
No they had not swarmed. We performed an inspection a few weeks ago and found the colony to be queenless.
I believe I will try to move brood from another colony and see if the will make a new queen. What are the thoughts on this method of queening?
They will make a queen that way. On the old queen, they may have drug out a dead queen. I had one bought queen that died in the cage between the time I installed and I checked a few days later.
The most common cause of this senario is that there is a queen that isn't laying yet but will be in a few days.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm#nobroodnoqueen (http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm#nobroodnoqueen)