My queen is trying to leave.

[NorthGabee]

I have a weak hive that I re-queened about 10 days ago. Two out of the last three days I have found her outside the hive body. Lucky for me that she was clipped when purchased. The first time the bees were in full swarm mode. The second time she was underneath the screened bottom board with a cluster of bees on her. Any geusses as to why the queen is outside my hive and not in there working?

[hummingberd]

Is it possible there is another queen in there? A virgin swarm cell you may have overlooked? Is the queen you requeened with mated? What are the conditions in your hive? any problems with disease or not enough space? What about the weather? Has it been very rainy as of late? Sorry for the 20 questions, but maybe there's some detail that can explain...

[Troy]

Do you have more than one hive at this location?

I was just thinking maybe there is something about that hive body or frames that they don't like.

Maybe they were weak for a long enough time that the workers are either laying or about to start laying and the false queens are chasing out the real queen.

Is the queen found with a big clump of bees, or just a few?

I have several ideas about what I'd do depending on the location and number of bees, how many hives etc.

Tell us more so we can offer advice.

[JoeMcc]

I don't have a good answer but I have had queens fly within a day or 2 of release but have always returned. I'm not sure why but iv'e seen them getting sort of....chased around and take flight right after I popped the lid. I wonder if they are just not quite accepting her and you need to re-cage for a few days. I suppose there is a slight chance that there is another queen in there.

fwiw.....

JoeMcc

[JoeMcc]

Is it possible there is another queen in there? A virgin swarm cell you may have overlooked? Is the queen you requeened with mated? What are the conditions in your hive? any problems with disease or not enough space? What about the weather? Has it been very rainy as of late? Sorry for the 20 questions, but maybe there's some detail that can explain...

Maybe another queen in a cell is quacking her right out the door????

I would run too if some crazy lady waz yelling and screaming at me.

:)

JoeMcc

[NorthGabee]

This hive has had problems for about the last month and a half.
Starting with hive beetles. I replaced all the brood box and frames to give them a new start. The hive was really small but I decided to try and save them by requeening. I ordered a clipped and marked queen . I took the suggestions of adding brood and nurse bees to this hive to make them stronger. The bees killed my queen very quickly. I re-queened again. She has been released for about 10 or so days. I took two more frames of brood this morning and added it to the hive hoping to settle her down and get her to work for me.
I did move this hive about 5 days ago to prevent the beetles form returning. (trees and brush nearby)I have opened the box twice since then and have found no beetles at all. My strongest hive is about 10 ft away. They are both out in full sun. I would estimate 500 to 1000 bees and 4 good frames of brood.
What can I do to keep the queen in and working?

[hummingberd]

What can I do to keep the queen in and working?

Queen excluders. Your setup could be a bottom board, queen excluder, deep or medium hive body, queen excluder, outer cover. I wouldn't do this for too long, but at least long enough for her to to start laying. Are you feeding them any syrup? Do they have drawn comb or just sheets of foundation?

[NorthGabee]

Just sheets of foundation and the added brood . Should I feed? I tried feeding about two weeks ago and the other hives started robbing.

[Joseph Clemens]

This hive has had problems for about the last month and a half.
Starting with hive beetles. I replaced all the brood box and frames to give them a new start. The hive was really small but I decided to try and save them by requeening. I ordered a clipped and marked queen . I took the suggestions of adding brood and nurse bees to this hive to make them stronger. The bees killed my queen very quickly. I re-queened again. She has been released for about 10 or so days. I took two more frames of brood this morning and added it to the hive hoping to settle her down and get her to work for me.
I did move this hive about 5 days ago to prevent the beetles form returning. (trees and brush nearby)I have opened the box twice since then and have found no beetles at all. My strongest hive is about 10 ft away. They are both out in full sun. I would estimate 500 to 1000 bees and 4 good frames of brood.
What can I do to keep the queen in and working?You might consider confining her to a comb surface with a large push-in cage. Trap her on a comb face where there is pollen, emerging workers and some empty cells. Then keep an eye on her until you see eggs and/or young larvae in the cells she has access to. You can also see if there is another queen present with territorial intentions - if present the other queen may be found on the outside of the cage trying to access your new queen.
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If they need to be fed, and they probably do, even if there is a honeyflow, there aren't enough foragers in the hive you describe to harvest enough for their need to expand. If someone was stealing your food would you want the kitchen to close so your food wouldn't get stolen. Instead of closing the kitchen, the kitchen needs to find a better way to serve your food to you.

[Troy]

OK, so you had hive beetles in there real bad. You said you replaced the brood box and frames. Is there any part of that hive that has hive beetle slime on it still? Did you soak and thoroughly wash the bottom board? Even if it is screen. The top doesn't usually get hit too bad, but it should be cleaned as well.

Bees hate the smell of Hive Beetle slime and it needs to be totally cleaned up to be sure that smell is all gone. A strong hive will reuse slimed equipment after it has been washed, but i they are already weak then they may just abscond, which is what I think you are seeing. They are not swarming, they are trying to abscond, but she can't fly.

Here is a radical thing you can try.

Take your new queen and about 200 workers. Put the queen in her cage with a small amount of queen candy, and put them all in a small screened box. I've held bees like this for more than two weeks. I just feed them a few drops of water and sugar water twice a day.

Let's name the hives. The strong one is A and the problem child is B.

Combine the weak hive with your strong one (move B to A location) via newspaper and let them be nice and together for 5 days or more.

Then do a split, taking the box from A and a nice mix of frames that are as much as possible from A over to the new B location. Add in your new queen, (again put back in cage with candy) tossing the remaining workers to the wind. Now you've got equipment that you know the bees like (from hive A), a new queen protected in her cage, nice frames of brood in all stages and some pollen and honey, and it should all be well.

Feed them both if you don't have a flow going on and make sure they get full enough for your winter.

Have fun with it.


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[NorthGabee]

I appreciate all of the input. Would you feed syrup ? Or Pollen? Or both?
Would a person need to feed both strong and weak hive as to keep them from terrorizing the weak hive? Would it pay me to move the weak hive and isolate them for awhile? These are just some of the thoughts I have been pondering.

I am going to open the weak hive and look for another queen. I do not see how there could be one in there.

When I cleaned this weak hive I did a thorough job. I burned the honey super and replaced all the frames in the brood chamber. I switched the box, inner cover and top.

I am going to put them back on feed for sure.

[mike haney]

i seldom have robbing using a pail feeder on top of the frames and covered by an empty box. good luck,mike

[NorthGabee]

Okay I am feeding my weak hive. I am giving them syrup . I went to the hardware store and bought an empty paint can(1 qt) and poked some tiny holes in the lid. I then put a deep over this and then covered it with a top.
The bees were working fine and had my newly introduced brood frames covered.
The queen was in there between the frames. Perhaps she is about to settle down and start to work.

[mike haney]

with just a quart can they will need to be checked every other day. i usually have a gallon on. i use a frame nail for the holes- no idea what size that is. good luck,mike