I have learned a lot from yall and my confidence has grown from learning and reading. I started two hives from three pound packages last sunday, I checked today. the two new hives I put on empty frames (foundation less). Today each hive the starts of five frames of comb!!! two of them were almost down to the bottom already!! I saw the queen in one. I didn't see any eggs but couldn't tell for all bee's covering the comb. On my first hive last year I used dadent frames with plastic foundation. The bee's never drew comb on it like these bee's are making on there own!!! This is really cool. I will get pictures soon. Not nice enough weather today. I am buying a queen from Walter Kelly for the third hive which has been queenless for about 7 weeks now. It is still packed full of bees but there has been no brood for at least 7 weeks and they are still bringing in honey? They also keep building queen cells although they don't ever cap them. I will give it a try. If it works then I will have three hives and I can transition this one over to foundation less too!!!
Question. How long till the queens in the new hives should start laying? Or maybe they are and I just couldn't tell yet cause nothing was capped.
Thanks again and wish my bee's luck with this foundation less stuff, they really seem to be kicking but with the comb building.
You could start seeing eggs on foundationless comb in as little as 4-5 days or as long as a week or so. Depends on resources.
A queenless colony, particulary one with good numbers will bring in nectar and pollen.
...JP
Yah Best of luck Harvey,it really is difficult to spot eggs in new combs,even worse if the there isn't proper sunlight to aid u.
Hey 7 weeks without a queen?? Man :shock: why'd u wait this long to purchase a queen??Have u been adding brood frames or those the same foragers from 7wks ago??If they are i think you'll definately need to boost with mostly capped brood since there'll be a massive gap between the time u get new queen and her bees start emerging.....Sure wouldn't want them dwindling
Haven't been able to add anything to the queenless hive as it was the only hive I had till last sunday when I installed two new packages.
it might make more sense to split the queenless hive and add those bees to the packages, they should have no brood left after 7 weeks.
It'll give the packages a good boost.