3 or 4 weeks ago I cutout half of a hive one week and the other half (with the queen) the following week. Did a newspaper combine. Last week I checked on the hive which is composed of only two medium 10 frame boxes and the queen was in there. I checked this week and upon inspection saw two empty frames being drawn out ( foundation-less frames that the bees are building comb on ) in those two frames there were every stage of larvae and eggs and all that...I was excited to see the queen doing an excellent job laying and the workers working.....one problem....I never saw the queen... I looked over each frame twice and no queen....didn't seem like a lot of bees in there either...wondering what I should be asking myself or thinking about at this point. Someone once told me that if i see eggs and larvae then dont worry about it the queen is there somewhere but shes marked and its a small hive...i should have seen her......thoughts?
Sometimes I think they're in the bathroom and that's why we don't see her. I went through a 3 frame queen castle twice at different times and never saw her. I saw eggs so I was content. The last elusive queen I had wasn't really elusive. She just wasn't the color I was looking for. I was looking for the European type coloring but this one was almost solid black - docile hive by the way. Another one looked like the rest of the bees - striped.
So I'll just be content and check on them next week. Thanks. Btw she is marked. That's why I was worried also. But the eggs trump my eyes?
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It's nice to see the queen on inspection, but I don't worry as long as I see eggs or at least very young larva. If you go through two inspections without seeing the queen or eggs, then you can start worrying.
The only time you need to worry is if you HAVE to find her for some reason. I combined two weak hives last fall and it took forever to find the one queen. I had to find her because I had to pinch her. I went over every frame 2 or 3 times and finally found her hanging in the middle of a cluster on a bottom corner of a frame. Caught her easily, but by then robbing had started. The robbing was so bad I had to turn a hose on the hive to stop it.
If you don't have to find her but you find eggs/larvae, then assume all is well and she likes her privacy [they're good at hiding!]. You'll probably see her in a future inspection.
I have an observation hive that has 8 medium frames in it. I can see one side of every frame any time I want to and my wife and 2 grand daughters and I check them several times a day. None of us has see the queen for weeks and she has only been seen twice since she completed her maiden flight 5 weeks ago. And she is a laying machine. The hive has gone from barely enough bees to cover the top 2 frames with barely enough supplies, to all frames full of brood with capped honey all the way around the brood and they are building comb below the bottom 2 frames.
As long as I can see eggs and young larvae, I know she is ok.
I have inspected 3 frames nucs and after going through them 3 times, I could not find the queen. A week later I did find eggs and larvae.
Sometimes the queens go airborne and then go back into the hive when you leave. I saw a queen take off one time while inspecting a frame. A few minutes later I saw her on another frame and again she went airborne and then she did it again.
I do not worry about seeing the queen unless I am making splits and I want to move her into the new hive.
Jim
Jim, I've seen the ol fat girls fly away from the hive. Then a week or so later I'd find eggs in that same hive.