help combining queenless hive

[Kelbee]

I have a hive that I believe is queenless. I requeened this hive early July, but immediately suspected a dud queen when I noted a new queen cell 3 days out when I released the new caged queen. The queen cell was eventually capped then emerged sometime later. I'm now 5 weeks out since the requeening (probably 3 weeks since virgin queen emerged), but still no eggs or brood anywhere. No signs of a laying worker, either. I've looked thoroughly for the queen at least twice but never found her.

It's getting late in the season and I'm growing leary of messing with it. There still seem to be plenty of bees but they must be getting old and will begin dwindling soon without any reinforcements. What I'd really like to do is combine this hive with a weak split that has a new and productive queen. But before proceeding I want to make sure this hive is queenless. 2 days ago I gave them a frame of eggs. Today I checked, but no queen cells!! What's going on?

Am I safe to go ahead with a newspaper combine?

Can I just shake all the bees off and disband this hive? Perhaps I could move the weak split onto this hive's stand so it would gain most of the disbanded bees?

Other options?

[tecumseh]

first off you live in a quite lovely portion of the country.

kelbee writes:
Today I checked, but no queen cells!! What's going on?
tecumseh>if you are on the back side of a flow then possible the queen has simply quit laying for a while. my guess is you have a virgin or newly mated queen on board. a dribble of syrup administered over a short period of time will typically kick off laying once again.

Am I safe to go ahead with a newspaper combine?
tecumseh> certainly. if you do a newspaper combine with a queen excluder (to hold the paper down) don't be surprised to find a queen laying on both sides of the excluder. when I am uncertain this is the path I typically take and it is not so untypical for both sides of the combine to profit by the combine.

Can I just shake all the bees off and disband this hive?
tecumseh> you could, I would not. most likely if push came to shove I would combine.

Perhaps I could move the weak split onto this hive's stand so it would gain most of the disbanded bees?

tecumseh>why not just do a paper combine... with or without excluder?

Other options?
tecumseh>you options are to do nothing and wait and see or do something (combine, dump out) and then wait and see.

[RayMarler]

If it was me, I'd would wait a week and see, it's only been 2 days since giving that frame of eggs. It takes 3 days for egg to hatch, and up to three day old larva for them to start a Qcell with. If after a week you still have no cells then you have a queen already. Are the bees calm on the comb? If so, you probably have a queen.

[sierrabees]

If you can obtain a frame of eggs and brood, put it in the hive. Check it in a week. If there are no queen cells on it, you already have a queen and she just hasn't started laying well yet. In all probability you not only won't find queen cells, but the margins of the brood you put in will have eggs and very young brood from your current queen.

[Kelbee]

Thanks for the input, guys. I'm a bit surprised at your contention that that it might take up to a week for them to build queen cells. I always thought they did so immediately with a freshly hatched larva.

I'll follow your advice though and wait a few more days.

[dcross]

I'm probably getting over complicated here, but if you have a box of comb, and two queen excluders you could put newspaper on top of the hive, then a QE, then the box of comb and the other excluder then the weak split. Give the split a top entrance.

If there's no queen the bees will move up to the split, if there is one you'll have a two queen hive and you could just separate them whenever you want. The queen and brood up top would prevent laying workers from developing down below.

[Ben Brewcat]

If it's been five weeks of truly being queenless I'd think you'd be seeing laying worker sign by now. Tecumseh and Dcross have your plan I'd say.

[RayMarler]

2 days ago I gave them a frame of eggs. Today I checked, but no queen cells!! What's going on?

This was on 08/07/2008, and 2 days is not long enough to be sure they are not going to make you queen cells. Sure, it's been 5 weeks since there was an actively laying queen, but only 2 days since eggs were given. Takes 3 days to hatch, and up to 2 days or more old larva to make cells. Give the bees till the 14th and check for queen cells. If no cells, the join with other hive.

[Kelbee]

I was skeptical of what you guys said about waiting a week. Today when I checked, that frame of eggs have several queen cells on it.

I destroyed the queen cells and did a simple newspaper combine.

Thanks again for the tips.