queen timeline

[ottebee]

I have two hives that don't appear to be progressing.
One hive has a new queen that appears ineffective. Probably a new virgin queen. If I replace her will that speed things up? These are new hives with packages installed mid-march. They are slowly drawing comb but not as fast as the others. Is there any chance of getting honey this year at all? They have two deep boxes currently and the second box is about one fourth drawn. How long till the new queen mates and begins laying?

The other hive is about the same except it appears queenless. They do have a queen cell made and capped. How long before she emerges, mates and starts laying? Should I requeen them both and maybe get some honey or should I let them raise their own queens since I might not get production this year anyway.
Of my four new hives from packages 50% are having queen issues. Is that percentage common? Can I take the young queen and start a nuc? Will the nuc make enough progress to even mess with it? I guess my question is "what would you do"?

[WVbeekeeper]

you're probably better off to let them raise their own queen. if you try to replace them and introduce another queen, it is likely that queen will also be superceded and you will be where you are now. as for nucs, these two hives may have enough brood to split them into nucs, but i doubt it. i make my nucs from colonies with a strong population and not the ones that are having problems. in hive one, you say the queen is ineffective because she is a virgin. did you see signs that the queen which came with package in mid-march has been superceded like some supercedure cells? the queen from mid-march would have been mated long before now. in hive 2, if they made a queen cell, chances are very high they made some more in there somewhere. you could find one and stick it in hive 1, but you need to cull out the other queen first and wait at least 24 hours before putting the cell in it. it takes 16 days for a queen to hatch from the day the egg is laid. hope this helps.

[Michael Bush]

>I have two hives that don't appear to be progressing.
One hive has a new queen that appears ineffective. Probably a new virgin queen. If I replace her will that speed things up?

If you think she's a virgin queen, then they are behind because of the 24 days to raise her and get her ready to lay. It's hard to say if replacing her with a laying queen will make any difference. But they can only do as much as the number of workers they have to do the work.

> These are new hives with packages installed mid-march. They are slowly drawing comb but not as fast as the others. Is there any chance of getting honey this year at all?

I would not plan on any at this point.

> They have two deep boxes currently and the second box is about one fourth drawn. How long till the new queen mates and begins laying?

If she just emerged, about two weeks usually. Lately it's been taking three for mine.

>The other hive is about the same except it appears queenless. They do have a queen cell made and capped. How long before she emerges, mates and starts laying?

If they just capped it, it will emerge in about eight days (you can tell a just capped cell as it's white new wax while older cells have a cocoon that makes it more brownish), and will be mated and laying about two weeks after that, so that's a total of about 22 days.

> Should I requeen them both and maybe get some honey

I don't think you'll get any honey no matter what you do at this point. I'd just try to get them in a good poisition for winter.

> or should I let them raise their own queens since I might not get production this year anyway.

They already are. If you find someone today who will ship you queens today and they ship them overnight, you'll have them tomorrow. If you make the hive queenless after they get here (I'd put the old queens in nucs just in case) and then introduce them for four days and then release them (standard release) then that's about six days total. It will take her another couple of days to start to lay so you're up to about eight days total. The virgin might start laying tomorrow. The other one won't start for probably another two or three weeks. The flow probably is over anyway and even if it's still going, building up on the flow won't get you a crop. I may get you through the winter though.

>Of my four new hives from packages 50% are having queen issues. Is that percentage common?

Unfortunately, from what I'm hearing, yes. It certainly didn't used to be.

> Can I take the young queen and start a nuc?

If you buy a queen, I would just to bank her to have a spare queen.

> Will the nuc make enough progress to even mess with it?

No, but it will give you a spare queen.

> I guess my question is "what would you do"?

I'd let them sort it out. If you have some emerging brood you can borrow from a strong hive you could boost them each with that.