Queen missing again!

handymandave · September 03, 2009, 05:05:23 PM

The swarm I captured at the end of July has no queen, again. A week after hiving the swarm we checked the hive and found many eggs, so we assumed things were OK.
10 days ago my wife and I went through the hive and found no eggs, no brood, lots of empty queen cells and a new queen strutting her stuff. We marked her and she crawled back between the frames and into the hive.
Today I checked it again very carefully to see that she is laying and again we have no brood, no eggs and I could not find the queen.
It is so late that now I think I have to do a newspaper combine with one of my stronger hives.
What do you think?

BjornBee · September 03, 2009, 05:24:23 PM

Sorry to hear about that dave,

First, I'd quit marking the queens..... ;)

Second, there seems to be many "queenless" hives right now. But most of these hives have little honey, and the queens are shut down. Many had a false idea that due to all the rain, that nectar is plentiful. But clover dried up and disappeared in the last week, goldenrod (the main stuff) is not out yet, and the bees are cannibalizing brood and conserving energy. Many hives burned through stores and are now on the verge of starving.

I was caught off guard and lost 5 hives and 15 nucs in the past week. Many were late splits with little honey. But for what they had two or three weeks ago, they are now starving. I think many people will get caught off guard this year and feeding is going to be needed. And if not caught soon, and the bees miss anymore of the fall brood cycle, no amount of feeding will carry the hives through winter.

Had two people call today and mention no new brood. They thought they needed a queen. But they also said the hives had no honey and any remaining brood was being ripped out of the cells. All classic signs of the final steps in starvation. They probably have a queen, just nothing to stimulate her or allow the bees to use needed energy raising more brood. They are in survival mode.

Kathyp · September 03, 2009, 05:27:07 PM

you beat me to it. :-D

combine and quit marking.

i do agree about the queens shutting down and the lack of stores. seems to be all over the place. i had stores, then i had none, then i got a little in, and now back to feeding. screwy year.

you can try feeding and see if that kick starts her, but it's getting late (at least for me) and i'd probably opt for the combine and split in spring if they come out ok.

sc-bee · September 03, 2009, 05:44:58 PM

Were are on the opposite end ---- with brood. We don't have the stores we should and early feeding is already a must for most.

My mentor went to his bee club meeting this week and the old timers are saying we have more brood for this time of year than we have had for many years. My hives are full of brood.

Not sure if it is a good thing because nectar is short if any. Feed -- Feed--- Feed!

Kathyp · September 03, 2009, 05:53:19 PM

i had more your problem sc-bee. tons of brood and no stores. still a recipe for starvation. in fact, i believe the reason i had to stores and no excess honey had more to do with the massive brood rearing than any shortage of nectar. we should have had a good honey year.

other thing i noticed is that in spite of the massive brood, the size of the hives was not up noticeably. i had blamed that on the swallows, but?

Boom Buzz · September 03, 2009, 06:58:08 PM

I found myself in the same position with one of my hives this week. No queen. No brood or eggs. But a good amount of stores given the number of bees. I swapped in a frame of eggs and brood to see if they will make a queen. I realize it is late for this but I am just experimenting and having fun with it. :-D If a queen develops, I may have a chance of rebuilding a little before the season is completely over. If not then I will do a combine. I know I will have to feed soon either way.

My question is, given the previous comments by Kathy Bjorn and SC-Bee, how do you know when to start feeding so that you don't burn through stores? I think there is still a flow going here, but I am inexperienced and maybe fooling myself. I see bees working the bolted broccoli, alfalfa, clover, etc. And I still see bees returning with pollen. But it sounds like the situation can turn south on you and the bees burn through stores quickly.

Is it best just to go ahead and put feed out and watch to see if they consume? Or are there other tell tale signs other than looking in the hive?
Thanks
John

RayMarler · September 04, 2009, 05:06:31 AM

When looking through the broodnest, keep an eye out for fresh open nectar around the tops and sides of open brood combs. This is a sign they are bringing in enough nectar to feed the brood. If you see no or little open nectar up close to the brood, then there's not enough nectar coming in to comfortably raise the brood.

Kathyp · September 04, 2009, 11:43:20 AM

that is probably the answer to why i didn't get as much build up for the amount of brood i had. thanks.

handymandave · September 04, 2009, 10:32:36 PM

They still had plenty of supplies, pollen as well as capped and uncapped honey so I don't think they were starving.
I have stripped out the less than full frames and have a newspaper combine underway. Hopefully, they will add some vitality to another queen-right hive. (There were sure a lot of bees in the air by the time I was done!)