what do I do now?

drmwarden · May 14, 2005, 02:26:16 PM

I just inspected my two hives: one that I requeened last month, and a new one that I set up a few weeks ago. In the old hive I didn't find the queen, but there was some brood; perhaps not the best pattern, but a fair bit in a number of frames in the upper deep. Once I found brood I stopped looking; this hive consists of two deeps and two supers.

However, in the new hive I found lots of nectar and pollen, but no queen or brood. I'm trying to contact Buckeye Bees to see if he can send me a replacement queen. How long will this hive go on without a queen? It's been installed for almost 3 weeks now. Is there something else I could do?

SherryL · May 14, 2005, 02:50:53 PM

You could move a couple of frames of brood over from the other hive, they'll raise their own queen.

Blackbird · May 14, 2005, 05:30:32 PM

Quote from: SherryLYou could move a couple of frames of brood over from the other hive, they'll raise their own queen.

There has to be a fresh enough egg for them to raise a good new queen.

Robo · May 14, 2005, 09:12:47 PM

I get on the phone and get a queen from a different breeder. Seems Lesli had queen issues with the bees she got from Buckeye too.

I wouldn't rely on an emergency queen. First of all there are too many variables involved including selecting the right age eggs to give them. There is a much higher chance of failure using this method and at this point you can't afford another set back. Even if you did get lucky and they raised an acceptable emergency queen, your still looking at another 3 weeks before she starts laying and then another 3 weeks or so until workers start hatching. All that time your hive will continue to dwindle. Get a queen shipped next week and get her installed.

Lesli · May 15, 2005, 10:26:24 AM

QuoteSeems Lesli had queen issues with the bees she got from Buckeye too.

One queen out of 5 failed. The other four seem great--good brood patterns etc.

Michael Bush · May 15, 2005, 06:55:54 PM

It's possible they have replaced the old queen too. The nice thing about putting in a frame with some eggs is you may be able to find out if they have replaced the queen and you have a virgin or if there is no queen. The problem is, if there's a virgin then they will kill any queen you put in anyway and you'll be wasting your money on a queen.

It only takes them 13 days for a new replacement queen to emerge from when they decide and they start with a 3 day old larva. But then it takes another two weeks before she's mated and laying and resonably easy to find.

drmwarden · May 16, 2005, 09:01:20 AM

I looked carefully in the hive; there was no queen, no brood, no queen cells...

Michael Bush · May 16, 2005, 01:13:19 PM

I have failed to find a virgin queen in a two medium frame nuc before, but she was there.

drmwarden · May 16, 2005, 02:59:56 PM

But if there were never any eggs or brood, they couldn't have raised a new queen, right? I installed the hive 2 weeks ago, and now there are only workers visible. The queen that I installed with them should have started laying by now, and she was presumably not a virgin, was she? I thought that the queens sent with packages should be ones that had already taken their mating flight. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Michael Bush · May 16, 2005, 03:23:22 PM

>But if there were never any eggs or brood, they couldn't have raised a new queen, right? I installed the hive 2 weeks ago, and now there are only workers visible.

Capped worker brood?

> The queen that I installed with them should have started laying by now, and she was presumably not a virgin, was she?

I have gotten packages with virgin queens loose in the package, in which case they usually reject the laying queen. It may be a week or two later before the virgin that came in the package starts to lay. If the laying queen shipped with the package layed any eggs and if the bees made a queen it would only take them 13 days from when they decided and 16 days from when the egg was layed to make a queen. Then two more weeks before that queen would start to lay.

> I thought that the queens sent with packages should be ones that had already taken their mating flight.

Yes they should have been.

If you have a frame with some eggs, I would put that in and see what they do. If they try to raise a queen, then they are queenless. If they don't, then there is probably a virgin that hasn't started to lay yet.

drmwarden · May 16, 2005, 05:10:59 PM

The queen that came with the package in the queen cage definitely did not lay any eggs. There are no eggs, no uncapped or capped brood and no queen cells. The package was installed April 30th. I am going to try installing a new queen tomorrow. Draper's in PA said they could ship an Italian queen overnight. Hopefully this will work.

Michael Bush · May 17, 2005, 10:58:50 AM

The only reason I've seen a package kill their queen is when there is a virgin loose in the package. All I'm saying is the most likely scenerio is that there is a virgin queen in the hive that is not laying yet and they will kill the replacement queen you put in and you will find eggs and a queen a few days later that are not the queen you put in. Putting in a frame of eggs gives you some assurance that they are or are not queenless.