How much brood should I add?

[BBHJ]

One of my hives is honey bound, no brood except for (1) queen cell. It had plenty of pollen also. This hive was queenless for at least one week and  without a laying queen for atleast two weeks. It still could be. A two weeks ago there were alot of queen cells and while looking at one frame a new queen emerged from her cell. Any way she flew off before I got the frame back into the hive, It was a stupid mistake on my part and I did know better but I guess I was just so excited about getting to see this happen that all of the little beekeeping knowledge that I have went out the window   . The next week there was only one queen cell left and all the others were open at their ends. I'm guessing that they've excepted a queen and she was on her matting flight or that I overlooked her I because I couldnt find her. I want know untill tomarrow when I check it if there is a queen or not. If I can find her/eggs ect. that is. My question is how much brood should I take from my other hives to put into this one to help get the numbers back up. I've been told that an average of 100 bees die a day INSIDE of the hive. My hives only have 1 brood box, so I was thinking that 2 frames having a nice large & solid brood area on each side would be enough. Is it, or should I get more. By the way, nomatter how many I get I'm only going to get 1 frame per hive as to not hurt their honey production anymore than nescessary.

[Moonshae]

If there's no queen, add a frame with eggs so they can raise a new queen. If all the frames in your one box are full of honey and pollen, a queen will need a place to lay, so adding a second box to give the bees more room is a good idea. Two boxes generally allow for a bigger bee population and thus more bees to forage and more honey. If the brood boxes get overcrowded, you might lose bees to a swarm, and that would negatively impact your harvest.

[Understudy]

If this is a standard 10 frame brood box. I would say get four brood frames. Then plan on getting at least two more about three weeks after that. Also I would plan on buying a queen . The sooner the better. If the queen you buy goes well you won't need the two extra frames later on.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

Sitting in O' Hare airport

[BBHJ]

For about 3 weeks the bees started hanging out side the box alot and bearding some. I thought it was normal but wanted to vent the top. The bottom is screened. Anyway after about 3 weeks I made a vented shim with two 5/8 slots cut in the rear & one in the front, looks like & entrance reducers (two short ones for the front & back & two long ones for each side)  put together to form a shim to go anywhere on the hive between boxes or top & inner cover. Looks kind of like an Emirie (sp) shim but its the same thickness as an entrace reducer. Anyway I put it inbetween the tele.top and inner cover. The bees werent hanging out as much the next day & then the day after that there were only very little bees out. Looked the same as it did in the spring before it got hot & dry. 1 1/2 weeks later there was no eggs,larva, or queen that we saw. This is when the new queen emerged. There were cells in both the swarm position as well as some in the superscedure position. Now the ? I was asking myself & still not shure of..... did they swarm or did the shim help cool the hive as much as I thought?  At the same inspection I did remove the queen excluder so that she would have a shallow or two to move up into if she wanted & also I felt that it was slowing them down almost to a stop. Thanks for the help, I'll get 4 frames in there today or tomarrow. I was going to get some eggs & larva as well incase there isnt a queen yet and something happens with the 1 queen cell that was left in there last I checked.             

[Brian D. Bray]

You may still be in that 2-4 week window where there is no brood with the swarming of the old queen and the successful mating and laying of the new queen.  A frame of brood from another hive will not only boost the numbers until the new queen can begin laying but call also tell you if you do have a queen by what the bees do with the eggs/larvae in the brood comb.

Then there is the possibility that even if mated they new queen may not start laying right away if you are experiencing a drought.

[BBHJ]

We inspected all 6 of our hives Sunday & we got a couple of frames of brood with larva & eggs on it. We didnt feel comfortable getting 4 frames though because a couple of our hives that have only been doing o.k. all yr. are doing very good now, & a couple of the others that have been doing good arent doing as well now. Anyway when we checked the hive that I've been talking about, here is what we saw:

1- still no brood or larva, as was expected
2- alot of the honey that filled up the cells in most of the frames was gone in
    a few of the frames and the honey was replaced with....
3- eggs & quite a bit of them   :-D
4- the one queen cell that was there last week was still their but opened at its
    end.
5- Bees but never saw a queen.

Anyway being that there was so many eggs we only put in one of the frames of bood with larva & eggs, and took the other one back to the hive that it came from. The one that we did put in had a huge amount of brood though. It had the largest area of brood I think I've ever seen. I'll check the hive in a few more days to see whats going on with it.