Queenless and no roar?

Pete · February 16, 2012, 06:14:35 AM

I am pretty sure i have a queenless hive...its a swarm i trapped a couple of months ago...was building up nice and now its stopped. They have no honey, no larvae, no brood, no drones and as far as i can tell no queen...but they seem fairly quiet.

Just newpaper merge them with another single box hive, or buy a queen, or put a frame of brood and one of honey and see if they can raise own queen?

Michael Bush · February 16, 2012, 07:17:33 AM

In my experience, if they have just become queenless they will roar for somewhere between a couple of hours and a day. Then they will start queen cells and things will go back to normal UNLESS they are hopelessly queenless and can't build cells, in which case the roar will continue...

They could quite easily have a virgin queen with no larvae, no brood and no drones...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beespanacea.htm

Pete · February 16, 2012, 07:25:06 AM

Thanks mate...i will follow that guide.

BTW i have read your site more than most and adopted quite a few of your practises, but i must've missed this one :)

Mainly, no more foundation. I cant believe how easy this makes life. Bees already know how to build it straight :)

Last harvest i stopped using the extractor and went back to crush n strain...again...so much easier and the bees just make more wax...means we get lots of wax and honey.

Thanks for your help, and your way interesting site :)

OzBuzz · February 21, 2012, 08:12:24 PM

Is it possible the queen has just stopped laying? try giving them some sugar water and see if that gets her going...

Michael Bush · February 22, 2012, 01:07:02 AM

>Mainly, no more foundation. I cant believe how easy this makes life. Bees already know how to build it straight

Amazing how difficult it is to get people to see how much easier it is... they always think it's harder.

>Last harvest i stopped using the extractor and went back to crush n strain...again...so much easier

Again... why does everyone think it's harder?

Pete · February 22, 2012, 06:00:04 AM

Quote from: OzBuzz on February 21, 2012, 08:12:24 PM
Is it possible the queen has just stopped laying? try giving them some sugar water and see if that gets her going...

I've opened it up again and i am pretty sure its queenless so i already started following Michaels advice.

swiftden · February 28, 2012, 06:48:02 AM

OZ,
Im a backyarder here in SA.
I have 30 hives however. Some are doubles some are triples.
I started with two 18 months ago.

I too am not sure how to go about things as my numbers increase. I have a 12 frame extractor, reducer etc
Im yet to set them all up.

I need to get busy so i can extract my honey

Regards
Allan