The oldest hive of my 3 hives has not been the best this year so far. After a complete inspection yesterday, I found no queen/cells,capped brood or any eggs. I have lots of bees/drones and capped honey. I ordered a queen and she will be here on Tuesday.
The top deep is full of capped honey. The bottom deep has some open cells and allot of pollen and capped honey. My plan is to take out 3 full frames on the bottom and replace with new frames and foundation. Is there and standard number of frames to replace when you re-queen with a hive in this condition? Do I need to add a top feeder for them to draw the new frames or just let them draw it on their own?
Dennis
The problem is that most "queenless" bees are not queenless, they are just without a laying queen. They more often than not has a virgin who isn't laying yet. Probably the old queen died or the hive swarmed. It's typically two weeks from emergence to a laying queen. A frame of brood is always a better bet as it is insurance in case they do need a queen but doesn't interfere with that new queen if she's there.
I recently went queenless as well. Like you, the upper brood box weighs about 100 lbs; full of honey! I drove 60 miles to pick up a mated queen and put her caged self into that upper brood box on Friday night. I hope it works out. If the queen is released and there are drone layers in there she will be killed. I really don't know what to do if, in a week or so, I don't see any brood. Should I write off the hive (I would really hate to do that) and go crush and strain to get the honey? I have only the one hive and they were going gangbusters before I lost the queen. Now the bees seem demoralized and so am I! Any suggestions would be helpful.
With a new queen on the way, should I put her in a NUC with a a frame of honey, brood and two new frames until I make sure that there is no queen in the hive? If they swarmed, I saw no queen cells. I hate to waist a good queen, if they have a new one in there already.
if you have another hive to set up a nuc with you could do that, This time of the year dew to swarming a lot of keeps think they are queenless when in fact they have a queen. this is also common in mid summer when the queen slows down or stops laying.