Inspection...now questions

[watercarving]

These are top bar hives...

Just did my first big inspection of the year.

Hive N1 looks good. No complaints. I expanded the brood chamber to lessen the likely hood of swarming.

Hive A1 is full of nectar and honey but there are no brood cells. Queen is obviously dead. Not a ton of bees left. Several thousand (maybe 1.5 - 2lbs) There is a supercedure cell sticking out but it's open. Don't know if she hatched or if they failed raising her. Should I buy a new queen or split these bees and honey out to my other hives?

Hive A1.2 is full of bees. Bursting at the seems. I expanded the brood chamber to lessen the likely hood of swarming. I found a queen cell towards the bottom of a frame. It's sticking out the side so I don't know if it's a supercedure or a swarm cell. I do not want them to swarm. Could I put this cell in the queenless hive? If not, do I kill it?

Thanks,

[Highlandsfreedom]

I like the idea of putting the queen cell with a few full top bars full of bees to simulate a swarm and help out the failing hive.  I bet it would be just like a walk away split.  Then you can knock out 2 birds with one stone.

[watercarving]

That's kind of what I was aiming for.

The A1.2 hive swarmed last year from the A1 hive. Both were very strong last year. Not sure what happened. Would be year 3 for the queen that's dead so maybe it was just time.

[irerob]

  If you are certain the one hive is queenless and shes not just hiding I would say go for it. I steal swarm cells and put them in nucs to bank queens. So far it has been a successful tactic for me.

[watercarving]

There are no brood cells at all so I assume she's just not there.

[David LaFerney]

If your weak hive is really queenless, but not sick, at this point you might be better off just combining it with a stronger hive until after the honey season.  The small hive isn't going to build up enough to make any honey, but it might help another hive.  Then after the flow mostly ends in July (that's how it is here anyway) you could do some splits to get back your hive numbers.  Of course that might not be the way to go if there is a good fall flow where you are. 

[JP]

Lets suppose the queen cell of the strong hive is a dud. This is what I would do. Take a frame of brood that has eggs and very young larvae, but eggs will do, and give it to the weaker hive.

They will make an emergency queen if they have none now.


...JP