Hi all,
Let me preface this, I am a total beginerr and I have no idea what I am doing. :) So hopefully someone can explain to me what is going on and what I should do.
I have a hive from which I removed the queen and most of the workers to start a Warre hive. I left about a third of workers and all frames (with brood, honey and pollen) in the hive. This is an experiment to see if the hive can survive and how it will develop.
There was a lot of strange activity Sunday when we came to the bee yard. The bees were really active around the queenless hive. They were also quite aggressive. I thought that they were ready to swarm, which did not make sense since they had no queen 3 weeks ago.
I smoked them and opened the hive. (that migt have been mistake in retrospect - I should have let them alone). There was no sign of a queen, no eggs, and one possible empty queen cell. The bees quieted down after my disturbance.
Can someone explain the behavior? I have three other hives next to this one and the bees in those were just going about their businees bringing in the nectar and pollen.
Here is a short video of the activity
http://beginnerbeekeeper.blogspot.com/ (http://beginnerbeekeeper.blogspot.com/)
Quote from: lof on April 12, 2011, 11:59:51 AM
I have a hive from which I removed the queen and most of the workers ...
QuoteThere was a lot of strange activity Sunday ...There was no sign of a queen, no eggs...
How much time between removing the queen and your inspection Sunday?
If you were leaving the colony to raise a replacement queen, they would start with a young larva (1 or 2 days since hatching). It would be 6 or 7 days until she was capped, 14 or 15 days until she emerged. Then another 10 to 12 days until she matures, mates and returns to the hive to begin laying. So we're looking at roughly 24 to 27 days after you took the queen before you'd see a new, laying queen.
I removed the queen on March 19th
So it was happening 22 days since the queen and bees were removed.
too early for quueen mating filght I thought. that is why I was surprised by the activity.
There are drones in the hive and the center frames are all nicely cleaned and ready for the queen to start laying. I am afraid that the bees will die off before there is a new generation.