Did I get ripped off?

[Beewildered61]

 I had about given up getting any more bees this year, when I saw an ad on Craiglist for nucs, about a 45 minute drive from me. I called the guy about  2 weeks ago, and he said he had Italian x Carnolian nucs with queen for $145. So I drove over to his house... He said he worked for a commercial beekeeper and he had 200 hives himself hoping to grow them to about 600. He took me to the nuc and opened them up and showed me 5 frames packed with bees and brood with a very good looking solid brood pattern, then he went and got a queen in the cage and said he had caged her a little before I got there to show her to me, she had a blue dot on her back. Then he took her and set her on the frames and let her go back into the nuc.

I brought my own deep hive box with screened bottom board and telescoping top, as he said he didn't have any boxes to go with the nucs. I strapped it all together with a big yellow bungee cord...As he put the top on the hive and pulled the bungee cord around, it slipped and snapped back. Instead of just grabbing the ends and hooking it together, he all of a sudden picked up the deep box by one end and the bottom board fell off catching the ground on the corner but not falling all the way flat...I wondered what the heck he was doing as some bees came out I'm sure, and I thought about the queen. He pieced it back together and stood there looking over the ground like he was looking for the queen and then seemed satisfied and put the hive back together and strapped it up.

Last Saturday at one week, I just opened the hive and peeked in, everything looked okay, I picked up one frame on the end and saw they were filling it with honey and closed it back up, not wanting to disturb them too much yet... Today I went out and did a good inspection, picking up each frame, there was a good bit of capped brood and I saw a little of uncapped with a grub inside, but nothing really new looking...of course I think the hives are about to go on hiatus as far as the queen laying aren't they? But I never saw the queen...They had filled a deep frame and capped it with honey and had a partially filled and capped one...I put a spacer on the hive and put a dish with crystallized honey in it, thinking I might need to feed them to help build them up for winter...

Just wondering if this could have been a trick of some sort....if he had dumped the queen on the ground, what would have happened? She couldn't fly, would she had stayed there and nurse bees with her, and then after I left, he came back and picked her up? Sure hope I haven't been scammed here. :(

[biggraham610]

Workers are capped at 9 days. Drones are capped at 10. If I am reading your math, it has been 14 since you brought the hive home. If you are seeing larvae, you have a queen. Good Luck. G

[iddee]

You saw uncapped larva today. That means there was a queen in there laying eggs 9 or less days ago. No, you didn't get scammed.

[Beewildered61]

 Thanks... he seemed like a decent guy, didn't want to think bad of him, but thought it was strange as to what he did putting the hive back together. Gonna have to look harder next time I look for the queen...there was a LOT of bees in there...and noticed a little wad, wondering if they had surrounded her, but couldn't see...

[mikecva]

one tip for finding the queen (but not always) is look for many bees with their heads pointing to a central hub, she will be in the center. If she is laying an egg she will still be hard to spot.  -Mike

[rookie2531]

Another tip, if you don't smoke her away, she will usually be on the frame that has many eggs and not much capped brood.

Another thing is, if the queen got dumped, they would have made another.

Have fun looking for her. Good luck and have fun.

[Kathyp]

Don't worry if you don't see her.  Just look for eggs and young larvae.

[Beewildered61]

 Thanks ya'll... KathyP- I did look for eggs and young larva, but didn't see any, except the grubs, and I didn't know it would have been before 9 days or they would have been capped, until some nice folks here informed me..     I also wondered if it was time for the queen to stop laying yet, so I wouldn't see any real young brood.

[cao]

I also wondered if it was time for the queen to stop laying yet, so I wouldn't see any real young brood.

I would say that it is way too early in the year  for her to stop laying.  I don't know the time frame for Georgia but around here the queen will continue to lay through the summer and into the fall.  In fact one of my hives was preparing to swarm.  I just inspected my hives today and the last one I found about five swarm cells in various stages of development.  The oldest one was almost capped.  So I caught the queen to simulate a swarm and made a couple other nucs.  I guess I got lucky.  I was planning on making up a few splits today anyway.  My bees decided to help me with that.

[10framer]

unless the bees backfill the brood chamber the queens don't usually stop laying in our area.  if they do it would probably be some time around january or february.