Question on adding a queen

harvey · June 27, 2010, 04:44:48 PM

I have one hive that is queenless. No brood, larva or eggs now for about two weeks. Thought they were superseeding or maybe they swarmed? I thought I saw two queen cells last week. Today (bad day to go in hive) I didn't find the queen cells? I was going to take a frame of eggs and add to the hive but good hive said no very convincingly!
I can pick up a queen tomorrow that is already proven. I have never entroduced a queen to an established hive. Is it the same as when I installed a package?

harvey · June 27, 2010, 04:46:13 PM

this hive is two deeps strong right now. Mostly all honey, will they make a spot for her to lay or do i have to get rid of some of the honey?

Kathyp · June 27, 2010, 05:04:50 PM

could your queen cells have hatched? if you have a queen in there you will be wasting the one you buy. yes, make room for the queen to lay. take some of the frames of honey from the middle of both boxes and put some frames of draw comb, foundation, or starter strips in there. freeze the honey frames you remove and save them to feed back later.

bee-nuts · June 27, 2010, 05:11:25 PM

Harvey

How long ago did you see the queen cells? Were they capped? It can be east to miss eggs. I would wait a week yet and see if you have eggs. I would add a frame of capped brood right now to make sure they have young bees hatching. You will also want to place your introduced queen in-between frames of open or hatching brood. Hatching bees will accept the queen easily.

If you really think you had queen cells I would wait another week before putting a queen in because they will just kill it anyway if they have one.

If I was you, I would learn how to spot a queen now. If you have Italians it should not be that hard to see her. It has been nice and warm lately up here so you should be able to take your time and split the two boxes, set one aside and start looking in one box or the other, frame by frame. If you find the queen, you can quit worrying anymore, at least for the short term. This was the biggest hurdle for me, learning to just find the dang queen. Once you learn how to do this, beekeeping is so much more pleasing.

If you take your time and look through frame by frame and put the sun to your back, look for open cells, look in them for eggs, use a magnifying glass or reading glasses if your eyes are not top notch.

If you put open brood in and they make queen cells, make sure you check back and make sure you dont have a laying queen about to get killed like just happened to me.

If you really had queen cells you should be good to go. If can be nerve racking to wait, not knowing if you are queen right. If you get a queen, I would see if you can get a marked one. That way if you find the queen later and she is not marked, you know you were right in the beginning and had queen in the works the whole time.

BjornBee · June 27, 2010, 05:20:36 PM

2 weeks with no brood? This means the colony has had no eggs layed in 35 days.

Sounds to me, based on timing for worker brood and queen cells, that the last two queen cells raised were emergency queens, which many times are crap, resulting in NO queen.

You run the risk of developing laying workers. Two things keep workers from turning into layers. One is queen pheromone, and the other is worker brood pheromones. You have neither in your hive.

You can do three things....

1) Add some brood.
Or
2) Combine with another hive to stop any urge of laying workers. Adding a queen, will just get her killed if they already started. Since you have no brood or laying queen, this will allow the queenright colony to keep the workers from developing, and they will also open up and perhaps expand their brood chamber. This will allow you to break back into two colonies after a couple weeks, and a queen has been secured.
Or
3) Take your chances and introduce a queen.

I would not be waiting too long to do something. The last thing you want is a laying worker colony.

harvey · June 27, 2010, 05:55:59 PM

Thanks all, I know I am not doing anything today as the bees spanked my pretty good earlier, never again during or right before a thunder storm!!! and smoke, me and the bees. I am not sure if the queen cells were good or not, very small for queen cells. They are gone now. I hate to get a queen killed for nothing but would rather loose a queen the hard way than loose a hive to laying workers. I can pick up a queen tomorrow. I will add one frame of brood from another hive and then the queen. Check back on her in a few days. Have my fingers crossed.

Kathyp · June 27, 2010, 06:20:34 PM

Quotethe queen cells were good or not, very small for queen cells

then you should assume that they were not and BB has given you good advice. when the cells don't look right you can bet that there was not a viable queen in there. i have made that mistake in the past and it ends in a lost hive.