New queen or nuc?

TerraJoy · June 07, 2011, 11:15:38 PM

I have lost my queen... my question is should I re-queen or add a nuc?

Vance G · June 07, 2011, 11:18:51 PM

Youj don't say what condition your colony is in. Unless you see cells with many eggs in them and have laying workers, you should just requeen. Much cheaper. Get the Nuc and put it in it's own hive!

AllenF · June 07, 2011, 11:20:34 PM

How do you know you lost your queen? Do you have eggs in the brood? Tons of questions before you get a queen or a nuc.

TerraJoy · June 07, 2011, 11:36:15 PM

I haven't had eggs for three weeks now... the last of the brood is hatching and there are a few swarm cells on the bottom. Everyone I talked to says I should scrape those off and introduce a new queen. All and all the colony is (was) strong. I ended up combining this colony a 1 1/2 months ago with another one who had laying workers (200 yd. shake method). So there are plenty of bee's and up until a few weeks ago it seemed a strong queen. Where she went I am not sure. This is my first year and I seem to be having the worst queen luck... shoot.

caticind · June 08, 2011, 05:58:08 PM

Odds are, you hive was very strong....so your queen swarmed. A strong hive with lots of stores planning a swarm will make strong queens. Don't destroy the queen cells!

I will never understand why people advocate buying pricey queens and destroying free swarm cells, especially given the rate of supercedure of commercial queens........oh wait, I think I just understood it. :roll:

Instead, if you want to increase your number of hives again, do a split into the equipment that used to hold the laying worker hive and give each half one or more queen cells. Then try to remain calm while waiting for the new queens to start laying, as it might take another three weeks.

AllenF · June 08, 2011, 06:08:51 PM

Ya, if you kill your queen cells, you will lose your queen. Mama queen leaves with the first swarm before daughter queens are hatched out.

Michael Bush · June 09, 2011, 02:36:25 AM

>I haven't had eggs for three weeks now... the last of the brood is hatching and there are a few swarm cells on the bottom. Everyone I talked to says I should scrape those off and introduce a new queen.

It takes three weeks to get from a capped cell to a laying queen. Sometimes four. Everyone apparently wasn't on here. I would not scrape them off.

FRAMEshift · June 09, 2011, 06:29:45 AM

Just let the bees raise a new queen.... or better yet, do a split and let them raise 2 queens. The only reason I can see for everyone telling you to kill the queen cells is that you may be in an Africanized Honey Bee (AHB) area. So maybe they are worried about you picking up AHB genes. If you are watching your hives closely and get rid of any AHB queens you should be ok.