Did my first inspection of the year and hive maintenance.
5 of 6 survived winter. . . at least so I thought.
One hive never had much entrance activity this spring, but enough that it appeared to have made it. Inspecting it today I find a rather decent population (bees covering say 14 of 20 frames to and bottom boxes) . . . and a rather impressive load of dead bees on the bottom board that I cleaned off (still some cold weather to come in Wisconsin so my entrances are small).
But, surprisingly . . . dare I say shockingly for a hive that appeared this healthy, there were no eggs, no larvae, no capped brood - no queen in sight. Went into both deeps and nothing - not even a hint of recent brood of any type - no queen cells.
Just seems odd to me that a hive could have a decent population at this time of the spring, also have a big pile of dead bees on bottom board from over winter, and not be queen right.
It just doesn't make sense that they swarmed yet. We have had all of about 2 or 3 days in the 60s so far this spring, not a lot of 50 degree temps, and mostly in the 40s for the last couple weeks.
I threw in a frame of eggs from another hive, so we will see, but curious what this is all about. New one on me.
Nothing new, it happens from time to time. Also, you could have a late supercedure queen that was mated but never began laying, if so putting the frame of eggs into the hive will probably jump start such a queen. Check back in a few days (5-8) for signs of eggs and larvae, or in their absence, queen cells. That will tell which development occurred.
I had a late supercedure queen in one of my hives and she didn't lay at all, the hive slowly died down to a small tennis ball size cluster with the queen in the middle. I introduced a frame of brood from another hive and said queen is now laying.
The colony that I thought wintered the best showed the same thing. I was happy to not find evidence of a laying worker and I combined a very weak colony on top of it with the hopes they will except her. Im just assuming she ran out of bullets or died. Best thing you can do is combine it and split in a week or two with a new queen.
thanks,
bee-nuts, I was also glad to not see laying workers - I did look around for this by doing a pretty thorough egg check after things started looking obvious that there was not queen.
We shall see what the frame of eggs/larvae/brood do. About to get another batch of cold weather (hoping for no snow although it was on recent forcast :shock:)
You have to have mature drones for your virgin queen to be for mating. If you do not have capped drone brood now it is a hopeless situation. You either need to order a queen asap or combine and split when you have drones. You are south of me a ways so maybe you have drones but I have not even seen drone brood yet up here. Last year my girls were already in swarm prep by this date but this spring is a full month behind or more.
Quote from: bee-nuts on April 15, 2011, 02:46:04 AM
You have to have mature drones for your virgin queen to be for mating. If you do not have capped drone brood now it is a hopeless situation. You either need to order a queen asap or combine and split when you have drones. You are south of me a ways so maybe you have drones but I have not even seen drone brood yet up here. Last year my girls were already in swarm prep by this date but this spring is a full month behind or more.
Chances are there are other beekeepers in a close enough proximity for a virgin queen to find a Drone Congregation Area (DCA).
I know of at least five within a 3 mile radius of my house which is plenty close enough to have a virgin queen fertilized by someone ele's drones. At this point in the spring some hives will have an abundance of drones and others will have none, depends on the development level of each hive. The same thing is true in the fall, some will kill of the drones early, others later, and some will carry a few drones through the winter.
I do have just a very few drones seen in my hives (less than a handful) - but agreed, the question is (a) whether there were other drones about in a local DCA and (b) whether the weather permitted any possible supercedured queen to fly out to a DCA as of a couple weeks ago. We had about 2 decent warm weather days so far this spring - otherwise is has been impressively cold, so I am not confident that any virgin queen would have been able to make it out to mate at a point in time when there may have been drones available.
Either way, hoping that the frame of eggs will turn things around. I am hoping that in 2 weeks from now (point when any new queen would be hatching if they make one) we will finally not have snow possibility in the forecast! :shock: