Queen but no eggs.

[CWBees]

I have a hive that showed dwindeling numbers so I checked it out today. I saw no eggs but I saw one queen cell on the bottom of the frame with a dead queen, white in color being removed from the cell by the workers. Also on the frame was a queen cell on the outside middle of the frame that was capped. I could not find a queen so I closed up the hive and removed the top hive body. Then when I was moving the top hive body I found a queen all by herself in the top hive body. Now what do I do? There is no eggs so is there no drones for her to mate with or is she sterile? Maybe she was recently hatched so has not gone to work yet. I was thinking if catched that swarm up in my tree I could combine it with this now very weak hive but now since I found the queen I am not going to do that.

[peggjam]

Chances are good she hasn't mated yet. It takes up to two weeks after hatching for a queen to start laying. You could donate it a frame of capped and open brood to boost it alittle.

[CWBees]

I think the the same queen I saw was on the front porch. It looked like she was being shased out by a worker. I now have her in a jar inside with a little burr comb with honey. What do I do now?

[iddee]

Watch her die>>>> She will not feed herself. The workers have to feed her.

Or put her back and wait.

[CWBees]

I switched the location of this weak hive with a strong hive. All I need to do now is decide if I should place a frame with a queen cell in the weak hive or replace this queen that looked like she was being chased from the hive. I think she must have been sterile and they are removing her. This hive came from a Nuk I purch around three weeks ago.

[CWBees]

I have read she needs workers to feed herself. I was thinking of placing a few in there with her. What I need to decide is if I should put her back in there if I am going to place a frame with Queens cells on it or maybe I should place her back in there and not place any new Queen cells in the hive. However why was she at the entrance of the hive with a worker that appeared to be chasing her out?

[Michael Bush]

My guess is she is their queen or one of the recently emerged queens. They very well might need her. She will die without workers to care for her.

She could be a virgin that was an extra from that hive. She could be one that flew out and mated from another hive but returned to the wrong hive. She could be the queen from that hive but hasn't got an entourage yet.

[iddee]

Probably coaching her out on a mating flight. As PJ said, she most likely hasn't mated yet.

[CWBees]

I replaced the queen and will see how things go. The population of this weak hive has now been boosted with foragers since I switched its location with a strong hive.I am thinking of placing a frame of brood in the hive as well to help things along. Now I need to get that swarm in the tree. Also given this i the second swarm in more than a week should I remove some of the queen cells from that hive?

[iddee]

Be sure the frame of brood contains eggs along with the brood. If you don't remove cells, you most likely will have more swarms, if you don't leave one, you may end up queenless. I would not remove them all, but I may remove all but one large, capped
one.

[CWBees]

Thank You for the advice iddee. That will be my plan.

[CWBees]

I wanted to mention that this failing hive came from a nuc 3 weeks ago. When the hive was established I saw a queen. I don't know if it is the same queen as I have now but if it is she has had 3 weeks to start laying.

[Branman]

A good rule of thumb is first to let the bees try to figure out things for themselves with as little manipulation(I don't mean hive manipulation as it refers to opening up the hive, but meaning removing queens, cutting queen cells if you see no evidence of a queen, etc) as possible. When you become accustomed to what is normal and what is abnormal, then you can begin to be more proactive steps in rectifying situations. But first and foremost, bees are wild animals that are programmed to survive and they will usually take care of things themselves if given the resources.

[ June 03, 2006, 07:35 AM: Message edited by: Branman ]

[CWBees]

I was just looking through the "Hive and the Honey Bee" and they mentioned that a queenless hive will have scatered drone brood from workers laying eggs and they showed a picture of this situation on a frame. I noticed this situation in my hive. one of the frames had scattered capped drone cells. I don't know if this changes the situation much but I thought I should mention it.

[Branman]

There is probably a few drone cells left because they take longer to emerge than whatever workers you may have had earlier. If you don't see multiple eggs in cells or eggs attached to the sides of cells, then you probably don't have laying workers.

[CWBees]

I just read that if a queen is present the workers will not lay eggs so since she is the workers will not lay eggs currently. So if the protruding drone cells were layed by workers then at one time there was no queen meaning this queen is prob from a queen cell and needs time to work things out which I hope she does since this colony needs it.

[Branman]

if there were laying workers then they would have killed any new queens offered or grown.

A second rule of thumb is that the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation. Ockham's Razor works for bees as it does everything else.

What most likely happened is that somehow the queen got squished, and they made new queens to replace her. Once she hatched, you took her away. Now either she's past the point where she would take a mating flight or she took the mating flight and is getting ready to lay eggs.

You're having the bee equivalent of medical student hypochondria syndrome

[CWBees]

I only took her away for 20 minutes hopefully I didn't upset them too much.

[Branman]

okay, you have a few options...you can

1. Try to requeen. You'll have to try your best to find the existing queen if there is one and cut out any queen cells you find. I would leave the cork in on both ends when you put the queen cage in. Then after 2 or 3 days, examine the queen cage and see if the bees have accepted her or not. If they've accepted her, you'll see them walk freely about and over the cage, feeding the queen and her attendents through the screen. If they have not accepted the queen, they will be buzzing madly at the cage and doing their best to bite the screen like crazy. It's easier than you think to spot the unaccepting behavior.

2. Wait a week or so and check to see if there are any eggs and/or larvae in the combs. This means the virgin queen successfully mated and is now laying eggs. No further attention is needed

3. Give the hive a frame of eggs and young larvae. If the hive is queenless they'll immediately begin making new queen cells. If they do, let them go about it and check back in a 10 days or so for eggs. If they don't draw out any queen cells then you have a laying queen in the hive or a laying worker, either of which should be readily apparent at that point.

I would suggest 3 if you have the frame to spare off your other hive(make sure to shake off all the adhering bees before you do the transfer), 2 if you don't have any brood to spare, then 1 if you don't mind the expense and the chance that you may have a queen you don't need.

Anybody else have any other suggestions? I'm going with no sleep last night, so I may be a little loopy

[peggjam]

You gave them a frame of brood correct? If so just be patient, they will figure it out.

[Branman]

Another thought, if you've got the other hive with swarm cells, take one of those frames with a queen cell on it and put it in this hive. If the hive needs the queen, they'll take her, if not, the current queen will kill her. If you're just going to cut the queen cells off the other hive anyways, I'd give this a try.

[CWBees]

I have a hive with extra queen cells (the one that likes to swarm) that I can spare so either I can place a frame of brood in the hive with or without a queen cell. I am thinking I will place one with a queen cell like you reccomended.

[Branman]

I think that's by far your best option(the frame with the queen cell)

[CWBees]

I placed a frame of brood in this hive a week ago Thursday along with a new queen in a queen cage. I let the queen out of the cage on Sat. when the bees appeared to be feeding her. I checked the hive yesterday and could not find the new queen and any eggs. The frame of brood did not have any queen cells on it. Today I placed a frame of eggs and larva in the hive. I want to see if I get any emergency queen cells made. I can't figure this hive out. I don't see more than one egg laid in a cell indicating a laying worker. I don't find any eggs at all. So what happened to the queen I introduced into the hive?

[Wee3Bees Apiary]

My guess is that she might have already been mated and is in the period before she starts laying. It appears that they accepted her and that she was okay . . . because they didn't try to raise any queen cells from the brood/eggs you gave them previously.

Wait a couple of weeks and you might be pleasantly surprised.

[wayacoyote]

Was she marked? The one that you saw a week ago, if you had marked her, you'd know if she was still around or replaced/ killed. Don, the Dixie Bee Man, told me that it takes a bit longer for a hive to accept Russian re-queens. You did say they seemed to accept her, but depending on the races you're dealing with, it's easy to get fooled.

You're idea with adding the frame of eggs is a good one. Return in 4 days to look for eggs, her, or capped queen cells.

I've never had a hive that wouldn't take requeening, but it does happen. All you can do then, if they won't raise their own or accept a fresh one, is to try a newspaper combine.

Waya

[CWBees]

The queen that disappeared was a mated queen that I purchased so should be laying eggs by now if she is even still there. If the virgin queen is still there from 2 weeks ago I would think she would also be laying eggs by now. I was suprised how small the Virgin queen was compared to my mated queens. If I don't get any queen cells then I suppose I have a queen or a laying worker but with either I would think I would see eggs by now. In the past when I went into this hive and looked around and could not find eggs or a queen and I thought it must be my inexperience. The eggs must be too small to see and the queen too hard to find with all those bees. However after going into my other strong hives and very often seeing the queen and eggs I don't think that is the problem. If it is a virgin queen I admit she would be hard to see but I would think that virgin queen from two weeks ago would be mated by now.

How long do you think it will take the bees to make up a queen cell if they need one?

Also I ordered another mated queen but I don't want to lose this one so I am thinking of making up a nuc for the queen I ordered and make a decision on this hive after I see either queen cells or eggs. If I start seeing more than one egg in the cells and layed on the sides of the cells indicating a laying worker I think I will combine this hive with a strong hive using the newspaper technique. Do you think this is a good plan?

[Michael Bush]

Sounds like they just raised a queen. She should be laying in about two or three weeks.

[CWBees]

It's been two weeks since I saw that queen. Should it take 3 weeks before she starts laying? The book "the Hive and The Honey Bee" says "Approximately three days after the last mating flight, the queen starts laying eggs." This vigin queen if she is still around has had 2 weeks to go on her mating flight. I have 3 Russian hives including this weak hive that I am not sure is queenless or not, and I have one Carniolian hive that likes to swarm. There should be plenty of drones around for a virgin queen.

[Michael Bush]

Two weeks after emergence more than 90 percent of queens are laying. If the weather is bad, once in a while, one will take three weeks. After that, if she's not laying, she's not going to.

[CWBees]

Good news I checked the hive today and there is eggs and larva. I assume the new queen I introduced into the hive is doing the work. When I released her the bees appeared to be feeding her so I assume there was no other queen in the hive. When I checked the hive last week I am suprised I did not see the eggs. I guess I need a little more experience training my eyes for that.