Queenless Hive?

[Kimbrell]

Is there ever a time when it would be acceptable to have no brood or eggs in the hive?  Today was my first opportunity to open my hives.  One of the strongest from last year still has a huge store of honey.  They also seem to have found some fresh nectar somewhere.  However I checked every frame and there is no sign of any brood.  I looked for the queen and didn't see her.  But then I can't usually find the queen anyway.   I'm almost sure there is no queen, but I just thought I'd ask....

[Cindi]

Kimbrell, I cannot help you here because I don't know your climate.  During the winter the bees raise little, if any brood, but that is when they are in the cluster, they may raise small patches of brood, but not all the time.  You may be just coming out of winter clustering and they haven't been able to tend to brood yet.  Wait, you will get more answers, but I would be inclined to wait for a little longer before I thought there was a problem, it is so hard to say, wait for answers.  Have a beautiful and wonderful day, with many more to come.  Cindi

[annette]

What kind of weather have you had recently???

[Kimbrell]

It's springtime so it's variable.  We had some snow last week with lows in the 20's.  This week it has warmed up.  It was 68 today.  The bees have been bringing in pollen for at least a week on the days they could fly.  I didn't mention that one of my other hives only had a patch of brood about 3" in diameter on one of the frames.  I didn't check any of the other hives that closely because I had already worked them before this hive and they seemed to be doing ok.  I had also upset them so much with swapping the hive body positions and the powder sugar shake that I didn't have the heart to go back in to check for brood.

[Michael Bush]

>Is there ever a time when it would be acceptable to have no brood or eggs in the hive? 

This time of year I would expect brood.  From October until about now, though, it would not be surprising here where I live to find or not find brood.  If the bees are superseding a queen or if they already swarmed or about to they may have little or no brood in the hive.  Especially if something happened to the old queen it can take 24 days to get a new queen and there will be no brood left in the hive by that time.  The best solution, if you have other hives, is to give them a frame with some eggs on it and let them sort it out.  That way if there is a virgin queen in there, they just have a nice head start, and if not, they can raise a queen.

[Kimbrell]

Thanks for your replies.  I found no supersedure cells in the hive.  I am a little reluctant to take brood from my other hives as they are just starting their spring build up.  I can't do anything for the next few days anyway because of rain.  I will check them again the next pretty day to see if any brood are present.  If not, then I'll give them a frame of brood as per your suggestion.

[dlmarti]

If there bringing in pollen like crazy, you probably do have a queen, and will have brood soon.
That would be my best guess.

[Brian D. Bray]

If there bringing in pollen like crazy, you probably do have a queen, and will have brood soon.
That would be my best guess.

The foragers will bring in nectar and pollen whether they are queen right or not, that is what they do.  If you've had a severe winter and/or very recent snow storms it is possible the bees haven't gotten into brood rearing yet even if they are foraging.  Putting in a single frame of brood, even if very light on eggs and larvae, should induce the resident queen to get with it.  If they are queenless they will build several queen cells--either way it will answer your questions.

[Kimbrell]

Thanks, the next time it stops raining and is warm enough (who knows when?!) that's what I'm going to do.