Swarmed - No Queen - Full- Please Help!!

[electricbluelizzy]

A little history...

My hive swarmed earlier this year.. There were lots of QC's, then half as many bees, with a little capped brood.

Waited about 10-12 days, checked again today. Now all of the frames have nectar, there is no brood to speak of at all. Several open QC'S, one appears to still be capped. There are several cups, but look to be empty.

I extracted a few frames last week, but the rest are not capped yet and I don't know what to do with that honey. Those empties are now filled back with nectar. The problem is that even if there was a laying queen, there is nowhere for her to lay.

What I think perhaps happened is the original swarm left, and the virgin queen was eaten by a purple martin or something on her orientation/mating flight... The cells I see now are likely to be attempts at supercedure cells, with a possible 1 successful - maybe not.

SOOOO, here is my game plan. Please tell me if this is good, should I change it, anything.

The hive is still pretty strong, even with all of the activity and losses, but with no brood, its just a matter of time I'm sure.

Firstly, I have two new packages at my house about 30 min. away - one great - one not so good but my fault for getting behind - they swarmed as well but seem to be back on track (fingers crossed, like this hive, I still see no eggs). I was thinking of taking a frame of eggs from the best hive to give to this faltering one, at least providing them with the means to make a queen if our hopeful doesn't pan out.

Then, the nectar problem. The hive has two deeps, and the top deep is probably 50% capped honey. I was thinking of moving the top deep up as a honey super, and putting a whole new brood box down below (bottom or middle, i don't know). I was also thinking of pulling some drawn foundation from my strong hive to fill in some of that new box, and giving them some with nectar from the faltering hive to utilize.

The other option would be to take my weaker new hive and combine with this other hive, to make one mack-daddy hive. But I'm not sure that one is totally Queen Right either... So I'm in a quandry... PALEEEZE help me know what to do. I feel like a bad mom...

Elizabeth

[Ross]

Either one will work. You may have virgin queens running around in both those hives. Giving them a frame of eggs will tell you pretty quickly, either they will draw queen cells (queenless) or they won't (virgin). Opening up some brood space is good, but the bees will do that for you when there is a queen ready to lay. Make sure they have some drawn comb, not just foundation.

[NW IN Beekeeper]

I see three options - requeen, re-egg, and join.

I might consider getting a new queen for the "home" hive. This will give you something that is laying now - not in a month. You could salvage the hive this way. You'd also not hinder a recovering hive. You'd also have another hive to support the packages then. Of course you'll have to open the brood area up with some drawn comb or new foundation (and feed, even if there is a flow, I've seen some hives still take it up over night and build great foundation (and feeding separate water doesn't hurt any either.))

If you pull a frame, its not the end of the world to the package hive, but it does set it back something. You'd also have to wait for a queen to dev., emerge, mate, and lay and thats a bit of time. All the while your current population is aging and dying. This is also a point to consider, you now have a hive that has been queen-less at least long enough to rear cells - this means that fewer nurse exist and that can have consequences on good queen rearing.

If you join, you're right you'll have a stronger hive somewhere else (and with reasonable stores from what you're telling us). You'd also be down a hive in numbers (don't forget your yeild from any fall honey flow.) This would mean that you have equipment sitting around waiting for new occupants (that's money not best spent.) So a join may cost you more than you first realize.

I have a hive in this condition, and because I have thought this through with you, I'm going to join it with another. I'm only doing that because of regardless of what I do, I can't the hive to accept a queen, they're too old to do a good job rearing another queen on their own, they're a liability to other hives (costing me brood to support them), and it's gotten to be a mean hive. If I had introduced a queen earlier it might have been different, but it became queenless too early in the season (nothing to mate with). I'm just forcasting that as the hive sits queenless, its overall health diminshes (despite whatever appearance of honey there may be).

Good luck, been there, know it sux.

JEFF

[Ross]

Waited about 10-12 days, checked again today. Now all of the frames have nectar, there is no brood to speak of at all. Several open QC'S, one appears to still be capped. There are several cups, but look to be empty.The only problem with combining or re-queening is not knowing whether you have virgin queens in either or both of the hives. You haven't waited long enough to tell.

they swarmed as well but seem to be back on track (fingers crossed, like this hive, I still see no eggs).Combining with this hive has the same problem, could be a virgin getting ready to lay or no queen, in which case combining will give you a stronger queenless hive.

I'd say do the eggs or get a queen(s). If they have a virgin (either hive) and you try to requeen it, they very well may kill the new queen.

[ June 01, 2006, 10:31 AM: Message edited by: Ross ]

[electricbluelizzy]

OOOOkay,

Joining seems like it presents more problems than it solves, so I think I am going to nix that idea.

Here is what "I" think I should do, given the circumstances. Give the weakest hive 1 frame of eggs from the strongest hive (which is a package, but had a jumpstart of brood and has two deeps completely full, ready to super for honey). I think it can take the hit, and actually might benefit from it because I am having trouble staying ahead of the swarming this year - they are building up SOO FAST, which is the stem of this problem.
If they start raising queens, then I know the virgin Q is toast... Yes it will put me a month back, but we are on the tail end of the spring flow now, and still have all summer to rear brood. Will they build up in the summer months? They just need to be able to survive a Virginia winter...

I know they aren't going to starve, I have honey coming out of my ears, and I can always feed too. If the existing bees get too old, can't I just do it again with emerging brood? I bet I have 7-8 frames of emerging brood on my strong package right now. In a week or so, they will be nurse bees, right?

I wish somebody would just say - do THIS! but I guess you learn more from making your own decisions and living with them. I'm going to cry if all my bees die though. :(

The swarmed hive has tons of drones. Is that a problem or a good thing?

They have empty QC cups... do you think they might be trying to raise another but have no eggs to raise from? Or would these be old QC's just not completely torn down yet?


Do I ask too many questions??

[iddee]

Ross said it with his first post....DO IT.

Put a frame of eggs in each "unknown queen" hive and let the bees do the rest. They will empty cells when she is ready to lay.

[Michael Bush]

I would not expect the new queen to be laying in 10 - 12 days. I would expect her to be laying in 14 to 20 days. A frame of eggs is the safest insurance. Then you'll have an idea where you're at.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm

[peggjam]

Do it, the eggs that is, and if they start making queen cells, buy a queen and introduce her, making sure you destory all the queen cells before placing her in the hive. This way your not buying queens you don't need.

[electricbluelizzy]

Ok, so I did it. They now have eggs, so we shall see. I went ahead and gave them some capped brood too to be sure they will have some nurse bees to care for the babies. It has been a full day of beekeeping and more to come on this evening. I think I sweat out about 4 gallons today........ So when should I check on them again?

[Ross]

They'll have queen cells started in 24-48 hours if they need them. You said one hive has tons of drones. They haven't turned laying worker have they? If so, you may need to repeat the egg trick a couple of more times a week apart.

[electricbluelizzy]

I don't think they have laying workers. As I said - no eggs. I added 2 empty frames earlier in the season when the hive was BURSTING full, to try to give them a little room, but it was too little too late. They filled those up immediately with drone comb, and those have just now stopped hatching. I'm guessing that's where they came from. I will keep that in mind though, and check when I start seeing eggs. I double checked when I added the eggs too, and they do have one capped queen cell left, so maybe she will hatch in the next day or two, and we will be back on track even sooner. Worst case scenario, they will have a little baby jump-start to get them off on the right foot.