Ok. I did a split taking the queen from the donor hive to a nuc. The nuc did great, and the donor hive raised a queen. She emerged on April 16th. I checked yesterday and it appears she has not made it back. I'm afraid she met with misfortune when she left to mate. Is there much hope that she's just not back yet?
There aren't any queens available in my area until mid May. I can recombine with the split, but I thought about taking a frame of brood from another colony and giving them another shot at raising a queen. However, I have no idea how long the colony can go without a queen before the workers' ovaries develop and they start laying in desparation.
Any insight or suggestions on how to proceed would be very much appreciated.
Travis
Simpsonville, SC
Some of the answers to your questions can be found here:
http://www.bjornapiaries.com/badbeekeeping.html (http://www.bjornapiaries.com/badbeekeeping.html)
Scroll down to shaking out bees. It explains some of the process of the laying worker colony, timing, etc.
Thanks Bjorn. Looks like I'm still in the window. I'll combine them with another colony and make a run at splitting them later.
Thanks for the advice.
>She emerged on April 16th.
Then I would not expect to find eggs until April 30th, two weeks later, which is another five days from now...
Thanks Michael. Maybe I'm jumping the gun on getting worried just yet. I thought the mating flight window was shorter, but after researching, you are correct on the 2 week timing. I'll give them a look see this weekend and let you know what I find. This same hive raised its own queen last year because the person I bought it from sold me a queen-less hive. As aggravating as that was, the queen they raised has an excellent brood pattern and the bees are very gentle; which is why I wanted to split it.
I'm still new at doing splits, so the advice is very much appreciated.
Travis