High population but no eggs or brood?

Beefunkrailroad · April 01, 2014, 11:48:23 AM

Hey guys! Finally some warm weather here in Kentucky. Hopefully Spring has arrived!
Out of the 3 hives only 1 made it through the winter. Its totally our fault, we are learning everything the hard way. But we are going into 2014 more educated and with bright spirits.

Our remaining hive was inspected march 3rd and we could not find any eggs, brood or the queen. We were very disappointed as you can imagine. Assuming the hive was queenless we set about ordering some nucs (they are on the way) and decided to do a much better job this year.
We inspected the hive again yesterday March 31 and the population is very high but still No eggs, No brood and could not find the queen. Any ideas?
There were no drones to found either.
If the hive was queenless a month ago would the hive have such a high population?

We did find 2 opened queen cells that seemed fresh.

Any ideas what is going on?

Thanks guys. This forum is by far the best source of information around. I got a lot of respect for you guys!

Wolfer · April 01, 2014, 12:01:11 PM

If one of the cells was open on the end and the other open in the middle you probaly have a virgin queen in there. They can be really hard to find.

Hopefully there's enough drones flying to get her mated.

Beefunkrailroad · April 01, 2014, 12:35:15 PM

Thanks Wolfer. We didn't see any drone cells tho. :(
The earliest I would be able to get a queen would be the 29th of this month, do you think that would be to late?

HomeSteadDreamer · April 01, 2014, 12:44:40 PM

Remember they don't have to be your drones. If I remember my reading correctly normally the queen flies farther than the drones from the hive she is at so she doesn't mate with drones from you hive just drones in the area of her congregation area.

sc-bee · April 01, 2014, 03:53:52 PM

You are probably looking at queen cups not cells. Do they have a larvae in them? If not just cups left from last year. Are they packing the brood area with nectar or are they cleaning and polishing cells? Population may not drop off fast enough in the time period you are speaking of enough to notice if queenless. I would think you should see larvae of some kind by now in Kentucky. Someone local or closer to your area should be able to tell you if your bees should be brooding up at this time. Queenless IMO sounds like a high possibility at this point.

Beefunkrailroad · April 01, 2014, 04:07:02 PM

Its seems that brood area is open and clean with nectar on the outsides.
I talked to an old bee keeper and he said not to worry about it, that I shouldnt even expect any brooding but Im not sure about that.
I will keep everyone posted tho. It may help someone else out.

GSF · April 01, 2014, 10:41:07 PM

bfr, back to the q cells and a point that wolfer mentioned; Did you take note of the q cells? Was one opened on the end and one opened on the side or somewhere else?

I had an experience similar to that around the 2nd of March. Turned out good. I'd check around every week weather permitting. You may be surprised. Good luck!

sc-bee · April 01, 2014, 11:44:22 PM

Quote from: Beefunkrailroad on April 01, 2014, 04:07:02 PM
I talked to an old bee keeper and he said not to worry about it, that I shouldnt even expect any brooding but Im not sure about that.

Maybe not brooding up but I would think some. And do you remember if the cups were laid in.... cells?

cao · April 02, 2014, 12:54:20 AM

I'll begin by saying that I'm too new to beekeeping to offer much advise but when I did a quick check of my hives about 2 weeks ago they already had larva of different sizes. I am expecting to see some drones in the making pretty soon. I am located just about straight east of you so I would expect that your bees should be starting to build up very soon. Like I said I'm new(almost a year) so I can't offer much advise.

chris

Beefunkrailroad · May 01, 2014, 12:41:37 PM

Hey I wanted to update everyone. It has been 3 weeks since we checked the hive which we though was queenless (no eggs, no larva and couldnt find the queen) and lo and behold larva! Im attaching a pic to this post.

Im very glad. Im not sure if the hive was queenless at the beginning of April or maybe there was a virgin queen but there are definitely eggs and larva in it now. We just assumed that at the beginning of Spring (April) that we would see activity in the hive like brood cells and larva but there was no sign of eggs.

Something else to note is, we started this hive last year with bright yellow Italian bees. Now they have large dark bands and are darker. Does this mean the queen mated with feral drones?

Ozark Lady · May 01, 2014, 03:46:51 PM

I went into winter with 3 hives. I lost 2 of them. 1 was my stupidity, the other was a shocker that I lost it, really strong hive. I found no disease at all, they died inches from food stores... too cold to move! Next year, hives will be better winterized!

I bought another colony of bees. The guy went through his hives while waiting for my flyers to get back in the box. He had capped brood but no fresh eggs at all.

A week after getting them home, I went into both my surviving hive and the new one... Hive 1 Minnesota Hygienics, apparently Italians based on light coloring.... capped brood, no eggs.
Hive 2 Suppose to be second generation Minnesota Hygienics, however, these bees are very dark, some appearing almost black... capped brood, no eggs.

Last week I checked again, Hive 1 has larvae not capped... yeah... still nothing in Hive 2. But both hives act and sound like they have queens in there.

Due to getting the second hive minus the honey stores, I have been open feeding the bees. They are bringing in pollen a plenty, but until I started open feeding I saw no open nectar at all.

I am only guessing... but the other guy had no eggs only capped brood, I had only capped brood... it must be that is normal for early spring?

I have heard, and don't know it as fact, that bees get darker with age. Perhaps both of us are seeing bees that survived the winter and are really old in bee terms?

ScituateMA · May 01, 2014, 07:42:58 PM

yeap,cold kills bees!

buzzbee · May 02, 2014, 10:32:40 PM

The queen will stop laying when there is not enough bees to cover a larger brood area. Once the capped brood emerges she likely will step up the laying of more eggs.

Ozark Lady · May 27, 2014, 04:06:59 PM

I moved a frame of young brood, just in case...
15 days later, both hives have brood. I mean large brood almost ready to cap. So, obviously there was a queen there all the time.
And the new box that I added with that frame... almost all drawn and full of nectar, time for another box already!
Yep, the season has begun! Yeah!