Drone Laying Queen

[dug_6238]

I have a package that has a drone laying queen. I can try to post pictures tonight if necessary, but I have combs full of beautiful bullet shaped drone cappings. I wanted to find out what my choices are or whether or not I should go back and talk with the person who sold me the packages.

I have another queenright and healthy package next to it that is on about 5 frames of drawn comb at this point. I hate to steal from them, but I would have access to a freezer onsite if trading 1 frame between the two colonies was the way to go. I just thought it was a shame to rob from the good package and weaken its chances of building up, especially at this time of the year.

Combining the two packages may be the way to go too, but then I either need to raise or buy a new Russian queen if I plan to split them later on. I don't think that a Queen raised in this area would have much Russian stock to mate with. This is also late in the year I guess to be raising queens. I have some other nucs that I started that I could combine it with, but I just hate to lose one of my two Russian colonies.

Suggestions?

If I get a chance to tonight I'll get some photos of that beautiful marked Russian queen walking around in my nice drone-filled hive.:(

[dickm]

I had one of 13 packages do this. I'd suggest you get a queen as fast as you can. There's time if you feed. You can have a queen almost over night. Kill the old queen 24 hrs before introducing the new one. Use your freeezer on some of that drone brood so they will clean out the cells. The company that sold you the packages owes you a queen. This could be a problem with the drones in their area. If you give the bees a frame of brood to make a queen from, it takes a month before you see 1 new bee from her, after the 16 days to make the queen which may not be well mated!

Hope this helps,

dickm

[dug_6238]

Yes, that DOES help. I didn't know if I should really ask for a replacement queen. I'll call them and talk with them.
Thank you.

[Troy]

Heck if i bought a package and some several weeks later I found this problem, I'd want the whole package replaced, not just the queen.

More than half the workers will have perished by now and the smaller number of bees getting a later in the season start need those extra bees to build up faster.

I think they owe you a whole new package.

[kc in wv]

I am not a lawyer but here are my thoughts
The dealer sold you a package and queen to start a bee colony. With what he delivered to you, you cannot start a colony. The dealer should be more than willing to replace your queen. I also agree with Troy on pushing for a complete repacement.

If the supplier doesn't come thru for you, post it to the consumer report forum here on Beesource.

[Michael Bush]

>I wanted to find out what my choices are or whether or not I should go back and talk with the person who sold me the packages.

I've never gotten a drone laying queen that the supplier didn't replace her without hesitation.

[dug_6238]

I called Tuesday 7/3/07 and explained my problem. They agreed to send me a new queen, but the issue of getting a replacement package didn't go so well as they perceived that the problem was the queen, not the package.

SOooo...with that said, the person I spoke with said that they wouldn't get the queen out that day, and that they'd be out for the 4th, so they'd ship me a new queen on Thursday (7/5/07). I asked what the transit time was, and she said it'd take 2 to 3 days to arrive.

Worried that it'd spend the weekend sitting at the local USPS distribution center waiting to get shipped to my local post office, I called the ditribution center. I've dealt with them before, and they're more than happy to let me stop by on a saturday enveing or a sunday to pick up bees. Local post offices are closed over the weekend, but the central distribution center is a 24x7 center, with shipments coming and going all the time.

Today's the 9th, so I hope I get my queen today. I'm a little sad to say that shipping times and shipping dates have been an issue in the past with this supplier, but I'll try to stay positive. The distribution center has my home and cell numbers. My local post office does too just in case it makes it through the dist. ctr. with out them calling me, but their staff knows me and knows that I'm waiting...

Soo...I guess I'm just sitting here waiting being less patient than I really should be.

I'll update you as sonn as I get something. I pinched the DLQ early saturday morning, so I'd really like to get a new queen in there SOON.

[peggjam]

Check for and destroy all queencells in that hive before you introduce the new queen:).

[dug_6238]

ugghhhh...got a phone call last night that the state inspector would be able to look through some of my hives today:), then at 10:30PM:mad: got a call from the USPS Distribution Center that my replacement queen had just come in.:)

TOO TIRED to drive down. Promised to get up early and drive .5 hour there and .5 hour back before work today.

Queen looked fine, placed cage in hive, hoping for acceptance.

OH YEAH (PEGGJAM)- I did find one lone supercedure cell, but the frames were connected together at the cell, and it tore when I pulled the first one of the two out, otherwise I would have at least set it aside to see if there was anything I could use it for. My guess is that it wouldn't ahve been a very good queen, and probably way too late in the year to start one?

*I didn't poke a hole in the candy with a nail like I have in the past. I will go back in 3 or 4 days and see if they're through. I did this to see if they would make it through more quickly in this weather, but later thought that really may have nothing to do with it.

***How many of you poke holes in the candy, and how many of you don't? Is there a realation to the weather or the time of year and how actively the bees chew through?

[honeyman46408]

'***How many of you poke holes in the candy, and how many of you don't? Is there a realation to the weather or the time of year and how actively the bees chew through?"

I never poke a hole in the candy, in years gone by the candy was hard and you needed to help the girls but now the candy is soft so the bees should bee able to chew through it.

another 2 cents=wont buy much