Removed hive question.

Started by PRB, May 09, 2012, 04:18:12 PM

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PRB

May 09, 2012, 04:18:12 PM
Ok so I'm fairly new to beekeeping, still learning and have a situation where I'm not sure how to proceed. Ten days ago I removed a hive that had taken up residence in the ceiling joist of a basement. They had drawn comb but only filled a small amount with pollen/honey. There was no brood so I discarded the comb and put the bees in a 10 frame deep with drawn comb. I wasn't able to locate the queen, so to be safe, I added a frame of eggs and brood from another hive. This was appx a week ago. So today, I checked them to see how they were. All of the eggs on the frame of brood were capped but there was no queen cells. I am still not able to locate a queen in the hive. Should I assume, since they didn't draw any queen cells, that the queen is in the hive and I'm just looking over her or should I be on the safe side and buy a queen to place in the hive? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks

yockey5

#1
May 09, 2012, 04:25:56 PM
Add another frame with eggs. Tarry too long and you will have laying workers. If no queen cells in a week you may try to install a new queen.

AllenF

#2
May 09, 2012, 04:35:14 PM
Eggs are real hard to see unless you have black comb.   Are you sure your queen is not laying?   But adding a frame of eggs is a good idea if you can not find any signs of a laying queen.

Kathyp

#3
May 09, 2012, 05:03:04 PM
there was no brood, not even scattered drone cells?

1. take pictures of the frames on either side of the brood you added and look at them on your computer.  be sure to take them at an angle so that you can see down into the cells. 

2. you may have a newly mated queen that is not laying yet.  this seems kind of unlikely to me if there was no brood in the hive you removed.  that would have been almost a month with no laying queen and the virgin should have been mated and laying faster than that.

3.  you may have a queen in there that is not laying. one that is old, or was poorly mated.  in this case, they would not start queen cells, but you would have no brood.




The people the people are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.

Abraham  Lincoln
Speech in Kansas, December 1859

iddee

#4
May 09, 2012, 05:05:04 PM
Sounds like you added too old larva. Add another frame, and be sure this one has EGGS.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*
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