Still Queenless and need advice

[ZEEBEE]

My bees made 4 queen cells when they went queenless. One of those cells emerged and they swarmed with her. I captrued the swarm and they are doing well.

The other 3 remained. One of those emerged btween 17-23 April. Today I inspected (7 days later) to find no eggs and the remaining cells gone. No swarm or queen cells. The bees are still gathering pollen and nectar but now there is zero brood in the hive.

Did something go wrong? I expected to find a laying queen by now.

If something is wrong, maybe I can combine the new hive from the swarm into old one?
There are 3 frames of brood in that one...
How would I do that if I had to?

Thanks in advanced. I'm frustrated....

[A Devries]

Zee Bee It is my understanding that it can take a week to ten days for a virgin queen to mate then several more days to start laying. If I'm right it could be almost another week before you see eggs. I hope it works out for you.
Upon further reflection; You could swap a frame of brood that contains eggs from the queen right hive into your suspect hive and move a frame of capped brood back. If they are without a queen they will try to raise another.
Albert

[This message has been edited by A Devries (edited April 30, 2004).]

[Michael Bush]

Queen development
Day What's happening
0 Egg layed
3 Larvae hatches
8 Cell capped
15-16 Queen emerges
22 First possible day to fly
25 First possible day to mate
27 Still mating
28 First day we may find eggs. Look for eggs. Don’t panic if there aren’t any. Weather can set things back. Check again every couple of days. Also don’t panic if there are two eggs in a cell for a couple of days. It should straighten out after a couple of days. If it doesn’t then you can panic.

[ZEEBEE]

Great guys, thanks! Looks like they just need a little more time. They are calmer though since the queen emerged...I guess I'm starting to notice these things...

I worry that the population will reduce to an unhealthy level. Would a booster pack of bees help?

[Michael Bush]

I think you worry too much http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif of course more bees will always help.

[ZEEBEE]

Good news. Opened the hive yesterday and I saw the new queen laying eggs. She was still a little bound for space however with all the frames filled with pollen and nectar and last years honey. I noticed she only layed eggs where she could which wasn't a nice sold pattern.

What I did was put 4 frames of comb with honey and nectar and put it in the new hive ( from the swarm). Now they have a full deep of drawn comb. I then put new foundation into the original hive brood chamber. The bees will move the other stuff aroung I guess.

[Michael Bush]

They will rearrange things to suit them.