What to do now?

ricky_arthur · April 21, 2014, 01:14:48 AM

I did a tree cut out 2 weeks ago. Very gentle, local, survivor bees and what I hoped to base the genetics of my apiary from. One week ago (which was 7 days after cut out) they had 2 capped and 2 uncapped queen cells. I peaked in 2 days ago and all the queen cells are gone. Like they never were. Is it possible the virgin queen already hatched and they removed the cells? My gut feeling is they did not raise a queen.

I am going to wait till tuesday (I leave for a week the next day) then look for the queen. If she is there, fine. all is good. but if not I have some options.

Option 1. I have a friend with a hive of local survivor bees about a mile from me. Her hive was split last week. I talked to her and she said I could look in on tuesday and see how many queen cells the split has made. If there are extra I could take either a cell or possibly a frame and put them into my hive.

Option 2 if there are no extra cells in the split I might buy a frame of eggs larvae and let my hive try again to raise a queen.

option 3 I have 2 nucs scheduled for delivery on sat the 26th. Since I am gone that week a local beek is picking up my nucs and installing them for me. I could simply combine the nuc with the queenless colony. But with this option I lose the ability to keep the genetics I want.

What would you recommend? I have to have this sorted before I leave for a month on May 4th. Any suggested are appreciated.

drlonzo · April 21, 2014, 02:02:37 AM

Ok if i'm reading the post correctly here the hive after you cut it out was found to have a couple capped and a couple uncapped queen cells. This would mean that they were actually prepping for a swarm when you did the cut out as day 9 the queen cells get capped. So going with that thought, were there still the same number of bees in the hive as was there when you did the cut out?

If so, what's happened is the Queen has tore down the cells due to having plenty of room in the hive for expansion.

If not, you have a problem as there was NOT enough time for a queen to be raised. Check for eggs at this point. If no eggs you have no queen.

ricky_arthur · April 21, 2014, 10:33:28 AM

Thanks for responding. No. There were no swarm cells or queen cells of any kind at the time of cut out. They made queen cells after cut out. But then the queen cells dissapeared for some reason.

10framer · April 21, 2014, 11:02:55 AM

i had a hive last year that always (i mean always) kept a viable queen cell or two in the hive. they would get cut down at the last minute every time and more would be started. they finally superseded in the fall (why i'll never know because the queen was a laying machine).

BeeMaster2 · April 21, 2014, 12:16:31 PM

Quote from: 10framer on April 21, 2014, 11:02:55 AM
i had a hive last year that always (i mean always) kept a viable queen cell or two in the hive. they would get cut down at the last minute every time and more would be started. they finally superseded in the fall (why i'll never know because the queen was a laying machine).

10 and Ricky,
Were they queen cells or queen cups? Most hives have queen cups, no larvae in them. They are just there if they need them. A queen cell has larvae. Not trying to insult either of you but this is a common misunderstanding.
Jim

10framer · April 21, 2014, 01:30:12 PM

capped queen cells always on the same outside frame.

ricky_arthur · April 21, 2014, 01:31:37 PM

Well. This is what they looked like last week. 2 capped. And 2 uncapped. The top uncapped had an obvious larvae in it.

Well. I guess the website won't let me post pictures.

drlonzo · April 21, 2014, 07:40:40 PM

ricky_arthur, 10frame - You two may have had a russian type colony. They tend to keep queen cells around all year long. And as you say they cut them down just before they would start to pupate. Something to think about...