My hive swarmed on 6/3 and there were quite a few queen cells and at least 2 were already hatched. On 6/18 I did another inspection a little later than I normally would have hoping to give the new queen some time to mate and start laying. On my inspection, I noticed no eggs, larvae, or brood. I figured the queen never made it back from her mating flight. I happened to have an extra queen on hand so I installed her. The bees are biting at the cage like crazy and are trying to reject her, and boy are they HOT!
Is it possible for a queen to not be laying yet and be in the hive? There is plenty of empty brood space, honey, and bee bread...just no eggs! I am thinking that I will make a split tonight out of this hive and put the queen in there. These bees are normally gentile, but ever since they got knocked over by a bear a week or so before they swarmed, they have been mean.
Not sure what to do here and any help is appreciated.
Kris
Yes, absolutely you can have a queen who is not laying yet. Usually it is 20 days from capped queen cell to laying queen, but a leisurely-minded queen can take up to three or even four weeks after hatching to begin to lay fully. And the fact that the bees are biting hard at the cage is a good sign that you do have a queen in there.
Now you've got your extra, sure, make a split. Just make sure that raised queen doesn't end up in the same half as the introduced queen.
kris,sometimes it takes longer than 2 weeks for her to start laying if she is mated.it sounds like you have another queen in the hive. the first thing i would do is get the caged queen out.you need to look for the original queen that hatched two weeks ago.the virgin queen or just mated queen is much smaller than a mated queen that is laying. ........schawee
Thanks! I have never let a hive requeen itself and usually just make a split with the old queen, destroy the queen cells, and install a caged queen. This time I decided to let bees be bees and hope for the best.
I just did a split and put the new queen in a 5 frame nuc with a few frames of honey and bees. Usually I let the split sit queenless overnight, but I just put the caged queen in the nuc as she has been in the cage for a few days already. I didn't find the hatched queen, but I am certain she is not on any of the frames I made the split from. I'm going to move the nuc to an outyard in the morning and remove the entrance closer. I also figure I'll let this hive sit for a week or so and then check for eggs. As I said, it is very hot at the moment. I got nailed in the neck about 100 ft away while feeding my chickens before I even went into the hive this afternoon. Hopefully this time period will settle them down as I have been in the hive 4 times in the past few days. (1 inspection, 1 install queen, 1 check on queen today, 1 remove queen and make split)
I appreciate the help!