So Im fairly sure my bees swarmed and the leftovers may be queenless. Im thinking this is also why my 3rd box is filled with honey and not brood as I posted previously. Ive already contacted the keeper I purchased my setup from and he has queens available, its just finding time to get there as its not very close.
Im hoping if I give you guys some details you could help me out.
1) I still have hatching capped brood, so there had to be eggs at least 20 days ago +/-
2) Have not seen eggs myself in at least 2 weeks +/-, as I can only check the hive every saturday or so.
3) they filled my 3rd box with honey and not brood as stated in another post
4) after a week they have not even started combing out the newest box and frames.
5) they seem a bit more aggressive. One actually stalked me across my yard and pegged me in the middle of the forehead. Oddly not a full sting LUCKILY. Like a quick whack and then flew back away to the hive. No stinger in the skin. This happened to me once before in my finger but it was my fault as I thought I was picking up a dead bee that apparently wasnt. This worries me because of my neighbors.
6) I have not seen swarm or supercedure cells in the past. Though I usually never went through the lowest box much. I primarily tend to stay in the highest box and just sort of sift through the frames below in fear of losing the queen (previously).
7) my buddy who also started the same time this year had his swarm. He was able to see his swarm but not retrieve it as it was in a high tree. I would never see my swarm as my backyard is a lot of woods and once in there they are GONE.
Aside no queen Im wondering if there was a newly hatched virgin queen inside that I missed any cells of. The reason Im wondering this is simply because of a lot of reading I have been doing and noticing a few details.
1) all the cells inside with no capped brood, I.E. empty seem to be SPOTLESS. I read this is called polishing that bees will do for their new queen to start laying. Though Im not sure if they will do this regardless.
2) I Noticed yesterday a majority of the bees in the front of the hive fanning with their abdomens raised. I read this is possibly due to a virgin queens mating flight. The bees do this to release pheromones so the queen can find her way back.
3) Ive read that the agression could be due to the virgin queen/mating time and the bees being overly defensive to protect her.
4) It could take up to 4 weeks +/- from a swarm for a new queen to really begin laying productively.
Again this is all information I have read online from various sources. Another interesting piece of "THEORY" I read was a queenless hive will have confused workers who meander at the entrance in circles before leaving, queenright hives the workers simply walk to the front and take off normally. Mine definitely take off like bullets, though again I read that was a old wives tail/theory. Im more interested in what others feel about this thought?
I plan to go in this weekend and see if there are eggs. My buddies hive that swarmed recently went through sort of the same thing. He went a couple weeks with no eggs then started seeing multiple eggs per cell so he was worried he had a laying workers (my fear). After watching he started noticing properly laid eggs. Im hoping this is simply my problem and a new queen succeeded in a mating flight yesterday and from here on the bees will calm back down and concentrate on raising brood and not chasing me. I have not noticed any loud roar humming from inside either.
Anyone have any other info I should be looking for?
thanks
All I know is if this was simply a wait between a swarm Im def setting up my second hive and getting a few lured catch/nuke boxes ready. I want to make sure I can catch any future swarms to pass along to others in the hobby.
I'm a bit confused by the following statement after reading your statement about hatching brood:
"1) all the cells inside with no capped brood, way less than uncapped, seem to be SPOTLESS. I read this is called polishing that bees will do for their new queen to start laying. Though Im not sure if they will do this regardless."
If you have young uncapped brood, sounds like your queen has started laying.
If there is no uncapped brood and the bees are opening up the brood area and cleaning the cells, that is a good indication that the bees are prepping for a new queen to start laying. This is not a good time to be doing inspections. Give her time to prove she is a good queen. Inspecting a hive with a new queen is a good way to have the bees kill her.
Jim
agreed, not a good time to be fooling around in there.
Quote from: sawdstmakr on July 25, 2016, 12:45:07 PM
I'm a bit confused by the following statement after reading your statement about hatching brood:
"1) all the cells inside with no capped brood, way less than uncapped, seem to be SPOTLESS. I read this is called polishing that bees will do for their new queen to start laying. Though Im not sure if they will do this regardless."
If you have young uncapped brood, sounds like your queen has started laying.
If there is no uncapped brood and the bees are opening up the brood area and cleaning the cells, that is a good indication that the bees are prepping for a new queen to start laying. This is not a good time to be doing inspections. Give her time to prove she is a good queen. Inspecting a hive with a new queen is a good way to have the bees kill her.
Jim
Sorry there is no uncapped brood, I phrased that wrong. There is capped brood. When I went in to inspect this saturday morning I noticed a couple hatching out but there is no uncapped at all
what I was trying to say was there was empty cells and capped brood but WAY more empty.
They have no started filling in emtpy brood cells with honey or pollen though as well so they are def cleaning and leaving them open for now.
awesome guys thanks. What do you think is a good sign things are okay? How long shoudl I wait. Like I said I usually try to rip as little apart as possible when I do go in. Im just gauging when I shoudl check before I end up with a laying worker.
"What do you think is a good sign things are okay? How long should I wait. Like I said I usually try to rip as little apart as possible when I do go in. I'm just gauging when I should check before I end up with a laying worker. "
Nick,
That is always a dilemma. Even with an observation hive, if you do not see the new queen you do not know if everything is okay until the workers are just about ready to start laying eggs. I even saw a new queen right after she hatched and still ended up with no queen in the OH. She never made it back from mating.
You want to give the new queen 3 weeks from when she should have hatched before you inspect the hive. That gives her 11 days to get mated, time to start laying and time to have open brood hatched out generating pheromones.
Jim
Quote from: sawdstmakr on July 26, 2016, 12:28:54 PM
"What do you think is a good sign things are okay? How long should I wait. Like I said I usually try to rip as little apart as possible when I do go in. I'm just gauging when I should check before I end up with a laying worker. "
Nick,
That is always a dilemma. Even with an observation hive, if you do not see the new queen you do not know if everything is okay until the workers are just about ready to start laying eggs. I even saw a new queen right after she hatched and still ended up with no queen in the OH. She never made it back from mating.
You want to give the new queen 3 weeks from when she should have hatched before you inspect the hive. That gives her 11 days to get mated, time to start laying and time to have open brood hatched out generating pheromones.
Jim
That is a dilemma itself since I have no idea when and where a new queen could have been laid. I have just been timing this all on the fact there have not been eggs or any newly capped cells.
I would like to examine this weekend but am now a bit nervous. I still see the bees going in and out as of today bringing back pollen and I was not noticed this time, so either Im lucky or they have calmed down.
They also were not all fanning on the front of the hive any longer.
Thanks for the help so far :smile:
New Queen might be out on maiden flight so it will be a few days till you see eggs if that is the case.
well just an update. Waited and was about 99.99% I ended up with a laying worker. The egg placement and quantity per cell was just to signifying to wait any longer so I went and got a new queen and am in the process of re queening now.
I took the entire hive apart and shook every frame and box out to get the bees off away from the hive and re assembled. Was quite the experience.
The new queen was next to the hive in her box while I was doing this and of course the bees were quite infatuated with her (whether to meet or kill, I cant be sure). I placed her inside and in 3 days Im supposed to go in and check on her to remove the tape covering her candy cork.
By then they say she should be accepted and begin to clear out the badly laid eggs and start to lay her own.
wish me luck. Open to tips.
Thanks