Non-laying Queens

[cwoernle]

I introduced two packages of bees and the queens into different hive bodies on May 3. I have fed sugar water to both, and the bees have pretty well drawn out the foundation in 7 of the 10 frames in each hive. As of today, however, I see no evidence of brood in either colony, but I have spotted the queens, who walk around apparently fine. At 4 weeks should I see evidence of brood? Might these be virgin queens and they have yet to mate? How much longer should I wait before I kill these queens and obtain new ones? Thank you.

[Beaches' Bee-Haven Apiary]

I've never experienced this. But I think you should most definitely have brood by now, something must be wrong with your queens. Where did you order your packages from? I would introduce new queens as soon as you can, but you may want to go with another producer.

-Nathanael:cool:

[BEES4U]

We shook out 200 four pound packages on 4/12/08.
The packages were made up on 4/10/08, loaded onto a 5"X10" trailer 4/11/08, transported home, and shook out onto Pierco plastic foundation 4/12/08.
I left the corks in the cages for 4 days, pulled the cork and inserted candy in the hole for a slower release in the darkness of the hive.
1/3 of the corks were chewed out when we worked the hives to put in the candy.
All of the queens had eggs to larvae in 5 days.
1 dead queen in her cage out of 200 is very good %.
So, you have a problem. Try to locate at least two frames of open brood to keep them going forward.
I have had over 36 calls for a queen to replace "lost" queens in packages this year.
No, I am not selling any more small queen orders as there isn't any profit in it for me.
Regards,
Ernie Lucas Apiaries

[Joseph Clemens]

Earlier this season several of my weaker hives became queenless, one of these, with a little assistance from me, managed to raise a queen. She happens to be from one of my Cordovan Italian breeder queens, she too is Cordovan Italian, though open mated (so far, her workers are not Cordovan - so she may not have mated with any of her uncles or cousins), and that's okay. Why I mention her here, is that by the time this hive had managed to successfully raise her, it is now almost three months later. When she emerged the colony was down to one 8-frame, medium super of new PF-120's, which they drew into comb rather quickly, then they filled it with nectar and pollen. All this took was about three weeks, and even if she were ready to lay, at this point there was very little room for her to do so (almost all the frames were solid with pollen or sealed honey). So I took out six of the eight frames, leaving two pollen frames on each side and filling in with more undrawn PF-120's and a comb with sealed and emerging brood in the center. I placed an empty super above and placed the honey-filled frames into it, filling in with two foundationless frames in the center. I kept an eye on this, now queenright colony, but though she was becoming plump (most likely had already mated), she was already more than three weeks old, but hadn't started to lay yet. Finally, on one inspection I spotted eggs and just hatching larvae in a small area of the drawn comb - it was the only one with a wooden frame. For at least another two weeks she layed more eggs into this same frame, and though the bees drew the other PF-120's and left lots of core areas open for her to lay in, she just would not lay. Now, another six weeks later (about nine weeks since she emerged), she has built herself a nice brood nest with seven or eight nearly solid frames of brood in the bottom super and the bottom half of about five of the next super up. They may be too late to catch enough of the Mesquite flow to allow any surplus, but I have prepared a super and foundationless frames for them to give it a try.

It is certainly curious to see the variation that exists. My experience has been that most new queens, soon after mating, could hardly be given too much room to lay. They seem to lay in every empty cell that is in the entire hive and any new combs where the cells may be nothing more than a base. I sometimes just feed them empty combs to lay in, then move the combs of eggs to colonies of modest strength, to build their populations with.

I've certainly seen other queens with similar, slow-to-start issues, but this one is a recent experience where I was just about to give up on the queen and replace her, when she finally ramped up and showed that she may probably be worth my patience after all.

[cwoernle]

So Ernie's experience is that the vast majority of time a queen introduced into package bees should start laying right away, and that to go out 4 weeks without her laying is a problem. And Joseph reports one example where eventually a queen, after a very slow start, managed to become a productive layer. Could my two queens be virgins (they don't look very plump) and just waiting for their mating flight? Might there be something in their environment that inhibits egg laying and, if provided, would stimulate it? The bees have drawn out most of the wax foundation in wooden frames and have filled it with capped honey (tops and sides) and pollen (centers). So there is not much open room for egg laying, but I can move some unworked foundation into the centers of the hives. Because of pending travel, I won't be able to attend to them for another 10 days. Maybe the queens will surprise me when I return, and if not, I'll replace them then. (Hope it won't be too late.) Thanks for the feedback.

[Michael Bush]

I've seen them take as long as 18 days to start laying. But that means they were banked quite a while, I think.

>Could my two queens be virgins (they don't look very plump) and just waiting for their mating flight?

If they are virgins, and haven't mated by now, it won't matter if they do.

http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm#impregnationaffectstheovaries

I would replace them ASAP.

[locoskip]

I requeened a strong hive this spring on 23 april and as of 23 may nothing . no eggs lave or brood. I gave my mentor an extra from the same shipment. he had the same problem. We ordered new queens when I went to replace her yesterday there was eggs brood and larve ..........The bees here (upstate ny) have a good nector flow right now and have mostly filled 2 honey supers. I'm going to let her be for the time being and see what happens