Nuc won't accept queen.

[Flyman]

I have one nuc that I have put 4 queens in during the last 3 months. They seem to accept her and she starts laying. Then, shes gone. When the brood hatch, there is no more. Add a new queen and it starts all over. I'm thinking of combining this nuc and starting with new bees. Any thoughts?

Tom

[tecumseh]

in the ball game I play it is a 2 strikes and you are out rule.

I have this pet theory that an existing heavy mite population will sometime encourage the girls to reject a perfectly acceptable queen.

random question... has this hive ever generated queen cells of it's own?

[Flyman]

ET, yes it did generate a supercedure cell on about the second requeening. I left it thinking that's what they wanted. Don't think that one every hatched as when I went back, it was gone. Maybe they tore it down after I requeened. Never tested this nuc for mites. However, I did start it from a colony that continues to exhibit low mite counts.

Tom

[Flyman]

Sorry double post.

Tom

[Flyman]

A few other thoughts. We used to call this "rolling you a peanut". This nuc was started from mutt italians. All of the queens I have put in have been MH except one which was a Beneford All-star. Sorry to loss that one. She was high dollar. BTW Mesquite is finally in bloom. Bees are busy again.

Tom

[carbide]

Instead of buying and losing a queen, might it be advantageous to simply give them a frame of brood from one of your best queened hives? Maybe they'll make a new queen for you now that they've been queenless for a while.

[JoeMcc]

I had a hive reject a couple queens.... finally found the cell i missed and the skinny little queen (and 1 day old eggs). Wait a few days and look for eggs.

If not insert a frame with eggs like carbide said. If they dont draw a queen cell or two out after a few days... look for eggs again.

JoeMcc

[Michael Bush]

Quite often the bees have already raised a queen who isn't laying yet, leading to rejection of the new queen. It may, in rainy weather, take as long as three weeks for a virgin to start laying. It usually takes two weeks. In that amount of time people often introduce two queens and lose them. I'd probably give them a frame of eggs and open brood and let them sort it out. They may not, but at least I'm not wasting more money on more queens.