Dead Queen-Reviewing my options

[AltamontBee]

Started two hives this past spring, added one swarm over the summer.

About a 10 days ago, we found our queen dead on the front board of our first hive-dragged out by workers. She looked completely normal and intact, except for being dead, of course.

Waited 7 days and rechecked-no eggs, no visible queen, and no supercedure cells on the frames we checked, although we didn't check every one.

We are currently weighing our options:
1) Re-queen in a hurry. But is it too late to do this in N.Y. state?
2)Wait another week and check again for eggs or queen in case we missed a supercedure cell, or a new queen that isn't laying yet.
3) Combine this hive with another-probably the swarm hive we picked up in mid-August.

Does anyone have any recommendations or suggestions?
Thanks!
Jennifer

[peletier]

Do number 2, then number 3 if necessary. Too late for number 1.

[tecumseh]

altamont writes:
Waited 7 days and rechecked-no eggs, no visible queen, and no supercedure cells on the frames we checked, although we didn't check every one.

tecumseh replies: well I am absolutely unsure of your conditions or the conditions of the hive... so I have no idea if you have some flow going on there or if the hive is a dink or a boomer???

anyway, what it kind of sounds like you may have seen is what happens to 'the older queen' in a two queen colony. if the season is over then without some flow the younger queen will not be induced to lay either.

so my advice would be somewhat like peletier except I would suggest that you feed a bit to stimulate a wee bit of egg laying.

[stoweski]

tecumseh replies: well I am absolutely unsure of your conditions or the conditions of the hive... so I have no idea if you have some flow going on there or if the hive is a dink or a boomer???



The hive was booming. We did have a problem with what we thought was a laying worker around the end of July but the hive corrected itself (we transferred brood from another hive as suggested) within a couple of weeks.

Other than that they have been doing great. This was the only hive, of two, that we actually got honey from this year.
We haven't had any nights in the 30's and goldenrod, asters, and other flowers are still out and the bees are still bringing in pollen like crazy. We've had days in the high 60's to mid 70's for the past few weeks.
Up until this point we thought that hive was the strongest we have.

I hope, as you mentioned, that it was an old queen (although we just put the hive up in May) and there is a new queen that just hasn't started laying.

My only question is how late can we wait to do a combine? Since we will go with option #2 & #3, and the feeder will go on Thursday, how long can we go before we "must" combine the hives? We just don't want to wait too long.

Thanks for the info!
Keith (Altamont Bee's SO) :)

[yoyo]

Even if you have a virgin queen, are there still enough drones around for her to mate with? I agree with the feed a little syrup for a another week or two( to simulate a flow), re-check for eggs, and if none are found, combine with the weaker of the two other hives, Set any honey stores on top of the inner cover so they can robn it out and place it where they want it.

[tecumseh]

as yoyo said the avialability of drones would be one question. from your description I would think drones have not been expelled... yet.

stoweski writes:
We did have a problem with what we thought was a laying worker around the end of July but the hive corrected itself (we transferred brood from another hive as suggested) within a couple of weeks.

tecumseh: humm some details are a bit confusing here. a booming hive and the time line suggest something besides a laying worker.

when you say you acquired these hives this year... were they existing hives, nucs, or started up on packages?

also, might I ask why you thought it was a laying worker?

as to combining... I do it here almost throughtout the winter. you of course are not in central texas sooo... if it were me I would pm sqkcrk or roundtop or any one of a number of excellent new york beekeeper here. I would suspect??? at or about the time drones are expelled is an excellent marker for doing whatever needs to be done before winter weather becomes an issue.

[stoweski]

from your description I would think drones have not been expelled... yet.

tecumseh: humm some details are a bit confusing here. a booming hive and the time line suggest something besides a laying worker.

when you say you acquired these hives this year... were they existing hives, nucs, or started up on packages?

also, might I ask why you thought it was a laying worker?

as to combining... if it were me I would pm sqkcrk or roundtop or any one of a number of excellent new york beekeeper here.


Thanks for the reply. Being new at this we have been learning as we go, obviously. Maybe at times we are learning something that isn't really the case, ie. laying worker. So here's the deal...

We installed this package on May 17th. Around the middle of July we noticed several cells (estimate around 100 cells) filled with 2, 3, or even 4 eggs per cell! The eggs were NOT on the sides of the cells but in the middle. Sideways, standing on end, criss-cross, etc. They looked to be at the bottom of the cells. But after reading up on laying workers and the possibility of a new queen laying multiple eggs (didnt' think she would lay 3 or 4 eggs per cell), and after talking with people we came to the conclusion that it was a laying worker and not a new queen laying multiple eggs. Maybe this was the wrong conclusion. When we checked them in July they seemed a bit more upset that we were in there than they had been in the past.

Anyway, the hive has been the most active of our three. They still are very active once temps warm up during the day. Pollen is coming in consistently still. Nighttime temps are in the high 30's, low 40's. We put the feeder on last week as you suggested and will be checking them on Thursday to see if we have any signs of a queen.

Thanks again for your help!
Keith

[AltamontBee]

I just wanted to say thanks for the great advice!
We put the feeder back on and started feeding them again about a week ago.
We went out and checked the hive this afternoon, and we had eggs, and larvae!!!!
Thanks again!
Jennifer