Perplexing Hive (kinda long)

[Kris^]

I'm trying to figure out what's going on with this hive.

At the end of May (5/30) I moved three of my hives to a neighbor's squash field, including hive #1.  This hive was one that almost died this spring, but I brought it back and it was one of my strongest when I moved it.  Ten days later (6/9) they'd filled the honey super so I put another super with foundation underneath it.  It also seemed to me that the hive may have swarmed.  There was lots of brood in the hive of all ages (even day old larvae), but no eggs.  There were several swarm cells and I didn't see the queen.  The population seemed little reduced, though.  I decided to leave it alone for a few weeks to let the new queen emerge and mate and hive recover.  I only pulled the super full of honey the following week (6/16), and replaced it a day later.

Yesterday, two weeks later, I did a full inspection.  I'm confused as to what I saw.  I found several frames with capped worker brood.  I suppose that could be from eggs I missed when I last inspected 3 weeks ago, but that's pushing the envelope.  Perhaps the hive hadn't swarmed yet back then, and the queen was still laying?  The swarm cells I saw in the hive 3 weeks ago were still hanging in the frames, except for one that looked like it erupted sometime in the past.  I also found some patchy areas of young uncapped brood, both worker and drone, but no great area or pattern.  The only eggs I found in the brood box were in a patch of drone comb.  I thought of a laying worker, but there was just one egg in each cell, standing upright dead center in the bottom of the cell.  I couldn't find the queen.  The hive was active and seemed normal, bringing in pollen, but also seemed to have less bees that the last time I looked.  They had drawn 9 frames of foundation out in the super and had nearly filled 6 of them.  I didn't inspect the top super because they had not begun refilling it.

The queen in another hive at the location had laid eggs in 3 frames of newly drawn super foundation, so I decided to swap these frames out with some eggless frames from hive #1.  I don't really want to raise brood in supers, but thought it would be better to have them do it in one hive rather than two.  As I looked at the frames I pulled from hive #1, I found one with a large pattern of eggs.  Again, all the eggs were just one per normal-sized cell, neatly placed.  This hive now has 4 frames of eggs in the super.

I'm confused about what this hive is doing.  I apparently have a queen in there that is laying.  And she must have killed the other developing queens in their cells before they emerged.  But why would the bees let the cells remain?  And why, with so many empty and polished cells open in the brood box, would the queen only recently lay eggs in the drone brood, even though she laid in worker cells within the past week?  And why would she ignore all the open brood cells and move to newly drawn wax in the super to lay?

My initial thoughts are that the hive hadn't yet swarmed when I inspected 3 weeks ago, but was in its preparations to do so.  I'm also thinking the new queen is just starting to hit her stride.   But that doesn't really explain why the queen laid in new wax, does it?  These are just slightly more than guesses on my part.  Can anyone else offer some comments and suggestions on these observations?

-- Kris

[Michael Bush]

>I apparently have a queen in there that is laying. And she must have killed the other developing queens in their cells before they emerged. But why would the bees let the cells remain?

There's no list of things to do.  If a bee happens by with nothing  better to do and if the queen has been killed by her earlier emerging rival, they might tear down the cell.  Then again, it might still be there next year.

>And why, with so many empty and polished cells open in the brood box, would the queen only recently lay eggs in the drone brood, even though she laid in worker cells within the past week? And why would she ignore all the open brood cells and move to newly drawn wax in the super to lay?

Sometimes a queen wants new wax to lay in.  Sometimes she feels the need to lay some drone.

>My initial thoughts are that the hive hadn't yet swarmed when I inspected 3 weeks ago, but was in its preparations to do so.

That would have been my guess.

> I'm also thinking the new queen is just starting to hit her stride.

It takes a while.

> But that doesn't really explain why the queen laid in new wax, does it?

They often prefer new wax.

>These are just slightly more than guesses on my part. Can anyone else offer some comments and suggestions on these observations?

http://www.beesource.com/pov/dick/simple.htm

[Kris^]

They often prefer new wax.

I had been led to believe that, given a choice, a queen would prefer to lay in used brood comb.  Hence, my wonderment.

I've noticed that many of my hives are eggless right now, even the ones that have identified, laying queens.  Our weather patterns lately have been hot hot for a week or so, followed by a couple days of deluge.  It's moderating now, for the time being.  Maybe that'll settle things down and get things back to normal.

[Brian D. Bray]

If the bees have been hive bound for a period of time they can take on the temporary behavior one would expect at the end of the season.  The decrease in egg production and such to preserve stores.  With the types of weather certain areas of the country are having--prolonged rain ajnd flooding--this is a very good possibilty.  They can also drop into this behavior from dearth as well as drought.

[Michael Bush]

>I had been led to believe that, given a choice, a queen would prefer to lay in used brood comb. Hence, my wonderment.

You have been mislead.  A queen prefers to lay in the brood nest which usually isn't new comb, but if you put new comb in the brood nest she seems to go right for it.  If she runs out of room in the brood nest, she won't mind a super full of new comb at all.