new queen being rejected

sonny · July 14, 2010, 11:04:35 PM

My queenless colony is not liking the new queen I am trying to introduce. I left her caged 5 days and when I released her she was immediately balled. I captured her again and remembered reading about the push in method of introducing a queen. I made the cage and put her and and a few attendants on one of the frames. I see now that I'm also supposed to have some brood but I don't have any. I'm kinda pressed for time because I'm leaving for vacation Friday. Anyone ever try this? Any suggestions? I have a spare queen caged in another colony.

Kathyp · July 14, 2010, 11:08:22 PM

are you very, very, sure that you have no queen in there?

sonny · July 14, 2010, 11:38:04 PM

Well, I thought it was and the state bee inspector came by last week and checked my hives. She agreed. No brood capped or otherwise and no eggs. This is a colony that I harvested 50 lbs of honey from 3 weeks ago. Definite weakening as I found a few wax moth larva in the upper food super. My thoughts are that it swarmed and something happened to the new queen. Three weeks ago the hive was packed with bees.

Kathyp · July 14, 2010, 11:46:25 PM

i'd go back through it frame by frame. take pictures as you go if you can. looking at pictures can let you see things that you missed.

maybe they just don't like this queen but a queenless hive that has not developed laying workers should be happy to have one most of the time.

conky · July 15, 2010, 09:27:17 AM

Agree with kathyp check for queen, I know this sounds redundant but a young virgin queen can be very hard to see and could take weeks to start laying. I just made 5 nucs within the the last few weeks, one killed the queen and was not building queen cells so I looked hard for queen- none found, dropped in frame with eggs/larvae checked in 2 days - no cells??? So I looked for queen again and there she was big and fat and I assume just mated. Only thing I can figure is maybe there was a swarm cell on bottom of frame that I missed when I made up the nuc. And this from a donor hive with a marked queen that I caught before stealing brood and bees for split- it's very feasible they could have been preparing to swarm prior to the split and I just missed it.
It's just in my limited experience every time I've had queen intro issues the hive has had there own ideas about the queen they want like a virgin, making cells, or already ripe cell.

My advice is drop in a frame with eggs and larvae, check in a few days, if no cells then they have a young queen.

Hope this helps

sonny · July 15, 2010, 04:49:17 PM

Hi, I thought I would add a frame of brood from my other hive but all I could find was capped. I wasn't here when the inspector checked my hives but she called and said my second hive looked great. I looked yesterday and only found capped brood, not much of that, and no larvae or eggs. I guess I could have virgin queens in both hives. I have had bees 5 years and have never been home for a swarm. I've tried bait hives and traps with no luck.Wonder how long my confined queen can last? I'll be gone 8 days.

conky · July 15, 2010, 04:58:42 PM

Sonny as long as there are bees to feed her I assume she could last indefinitely in a cage inside the hive.

I've only used a push in cage once and it didn't work because my drawn comb was new and the bees chewed through the back of the frame and still got to her, but I think they shouldn't do this with older brood comb.

BjornBee · July 15, 2010, 07:01:08 PM

Maybe you could consider taking the queen with a couple frames from the queenright colony and get her established. This will buy you the time to work out the issues with the full size hives.

I think after 5 days, there is definitely something going on inside the colony prohibiting them from accepting her.

sonny · July 17, 2010, 02:59:42 PM

I' m in NC now but had a quick look at my hive before I left. I had only put in about 6 attendants in the pushin cage but when I checked yesterday I had probably 40 or 50. The queen seemed to be doing fine. All might be well. Don't know how they got in but if they got in they can get out.

Joelel · July 17, 2010, 04:35:21 PM

Quote from: sonny on July 14, 2010, 11:04:35 PM
My queenless colony is not liking the new queen I am trying to introduce. I left her caged 5 days and when I released her she was immediately balled. I captured her again and remembered reading about the push in method of introducing a queen. I made the cage and put her and and a few attendants on one of the frames. I see now that I'm also supposed to have some brood but I don't have any. I'm kinda pressed for time because I'm leaving for vacation Friday. Anyone ever try this? Any suggestions? I have a spare queen caged in another colony.

Spray the queen and attendants and cage with sugar water before introducing her,they will except her much better. It covers her scent.

BjornBee · July 17, 2010, 05:20:10 PM

I never had to spray any queen down to cover a scent. If the hive is queenless and properly prepared, they will take her.

I once put too much water on the screen of a queen sitting on my counter. They tracked the water all over the three hole wooden cage to the point that they got all sticky and died.

I personally think spraying the cage down with syrup may have it's risks.

Besides, the whole idea is to NOT HIDE her scent. You want them getting to know her scent. So someone tell me how spraying down a queen cage that is being introduced over a few day period, with the idea of "hiding" a scent, is a good thing. Hmmmm......

sonny · July 25, 2010, 04:57:41 PM

Back from vacation and checked my hive, the queen was dead. Also some wax moth larvae now. I had reduced the hive to a deep and a medium. I guess I will combine with my other hive.