Hopelessly Queenless ?

[Joseph Clemens]

To many of you this topic is quite likely, very familiar, even redundant, but I have only recently begun to raise queens using methods more sophisticated than creating walk-away splits. I had once believed that after the queen cells were placed into the mating nucs that they would soon become mated laying queens. Since then (this is my second season raising queens), I have produced several hundred queens cells. I know that's not very many to those of you who have been queen-raising for quite a while now, but for me it has been a fair amount. I became alarmed at how often nice looking virgin queens would simply disappear - so I started watching even more closely.

Thanks to some recent serendipitous observations I have noticed an insidious effect of Varroa mites on queenless hives that are attempting to replace their queen. When there are emergency queen cells, and especially emergency queen cells produced in hives with limited quantities of, soon-to-be-capped worker and drone brood -- many of the queen cells seem to be infested with mites, possibly out of "desperation" on the part of the mites.

What I have seen are queens that emerge with shriveled wings (likely infected with DWV), queens that emerge with several mites attached, queens that emerge, but are quickly balled-to-death, or forced from the hive.

Mite population control (for those of us who choose not to use pesticides for mite control), seems to be closely tied to what is happening in the brood nest. And, this seems particularly poignant when a hive is attempting to raise a queen or queens. If they are nearly broodless from congestion prior to swarming or almost broodless due to a failing queen then the phoretic mites may, in desperation, choose queen cells to attempt their reproduction and subsequently deprive the queenless bees of a viable new queen mother, they then become hopelessly queenless without additional beekeeper intervention or the incursion of an outside queen. This may also explain why it seems more difficult to produce new, viable queens, or why new queens seem to disappear so frequently.

[adamf]

Thanks to some recent serendipitous observations I have noticed an insidious effect of Varroa mites on queenless hives that are attempting to replace their queen.

From your description, it sounds like the varroa load is extremely high in these units and there are very meager numbers of the correct age bees to rear quality queens.

If your population of nurse bees (from open brood) is sufficient, not only will you produce queens with their ovariole potential realized (through nutrition) but you should see a hygenic effect as the hive population also remove mites from the colony.

Hatching out virgins with deformed wings from either DWV or just mechanical injury from mite-infested cells indicates your rearing population is much too low--at least from your description.

Adam Finkelstein
www.vpqueenbees.com

[BjornBee]

Joseph,
I agree with your observation, at least from the standpoint that it can happen.

I have had people purchase a queen, and install them in a queenless hive. Then they call a few weeks later, with questions of queen quality, etc., having based this on seeing bees emerge with DWV. I explain to them, that any genetics in the hive is not from the new queen (from the point that her bees are not yet cleaning cells, etc.). I then also explain to them that the mites were possibly building up while there was no open brood for them to infest. So then when the new queen lays the first round of brood and they are ready to be capped, there is a bum-rush of higher than normal mites going into each cell. This is seen with the results of DWV and damaged bees for the first few days. But there is a leveling out less damage is seen after that.

I personally do not shake bees and build cell builders. I know some who do, and when they have a large population of bees going a period of time with no brood, this can also be damaging to the queen cells. Feeding bees and shaking bees into broodless hives for queen rearing can cause problems.

It does not take many mites, no matter how many mites there are, when you are comparing thousands of cells for mites to normally infest, and now limit that number to a bar of 36 or 48 queen cells. A normally good hygienic hive that deals with mites, can be seen to have problems just by this limiting of cells for them to enter.

I have gone to just using strong full size healthy colonies. I pull the queen. Harvest the started queen cells about 48-72 hours later. I then graft back into the same hive with their own royal jelly, and since the brood break is minimal, you do not get this problem with mites bum-rushing the queen cells.

Only draw-back to the above system, is a much suggested second inspection to make sure NO queens cells were missed the first time round when harvesting the R.J.

[Joseph Clemens]

Thanks adamf and BjornBee,

Though most of the incidents that I have observed were not with my cultured queen cells, but emergency queen cells created in several hives which had unexpectedly or intentionally become queenless.

Though I have, what I consider, too low a rate of mated, laying queens after placing the queen cells into the mating nucs. It seems to be about 50% of the queen cells I install in mating nucs become mated, laying queens - the other half just disappear.

BjornBee, I am definitely going to see if I can get better results if I raise my queen cells in differently managed cell starter/grower colonies, as you suggested. It sounds like it should improve the quality of my finished product, not to mention reduce how much work I have to do per mated/laying queen produced.

[tecumseh]

joseph clemens writes:
I became alarmed at how often nice looking virgin queens would simply disappear - so I started watching even more closely.

tecumseh:
there is of course (often ignored by some) a significant loss of queens between a virgin's queens emergence and a properly mated queen. some writing indicated in feral hive populations that this loss may be as large as 1/3 of the total of emerged females.

given what you have observed joseph it would seem reasonable that some superscedures may be varroa induced and most especially if the hive in question is reasonable hygenic. it has seemed to me for quite some time that on a number of occasion a perfectly good queens begins laying up and then after a fairly short period of time is supersceded. your hypothesis.. little brood and heavy varroa infestation resulting in large number of larvae being removed by hygenic workers.. would work nicely into this series of events.

[yoyo]

When you say they are superceded fairly quickly, could it be that the new queen pheremone just has not developed it's full potential yet. The reason I say this is that there does seem to be lots of discussion about new queens being superceded. I also had an experience with two packages this spring in which both hives quickly made supercedure cells in the first week after installation. I tore those out and found that the bees accepted this and was content from then on. Maybe I could be way off on this, but I believe that the queen pheremone was not developed enough AND/OR not spread around the hive enough to prevent some bees from starting the cells. Bees will sometimes start a queen cell from eggs that get moved inadvertently away from the brood nest during hive management. After the second week, both of my hives were doing great. It does take some time for a new queen to begin laying, two weeks are not uncommon, and it seems correct to think it would take some time for her ovaries to get to full production and for her to "fatten-up" for laying.

[Joseph Clemens]

yoyo,
I understand what you are describing, and I have seen scenario's where, quite possibly queens whose pheromone's do not peak soon enough are quickly superseded. I've had several hives whose young queens didn't start laying, in earnest, for as long as a month after they first began to lay. One of these queens first laid a small, palm-sized area on one side of a frame, the bees soon began creating superseder queen cells, which I would remove each week, but this queen never seemed to lay more than 100 eggs per week, until finally, four weeks later she started filling nearly all empty comb within her reach with eggs, and continues (now several months later) to maintain a nice-sized brood nest and population of adult bees. Once she did begin laying in earnest, the bees ceased to attempt her superseder, and she continues to head that hive, yet.

I have also had many young queens that actually fill all empty cells, even seemingly unsuitable cells, with eggs almost as soon as they return from their mating flights. These laying-machine queens rarely, if at all, seem to be readily replaced.

I wish I knew an easy way to ensure that all young queens would be more like the laying-machine type and not the reluctant mother type.

[yoyo]

I feel there are probably alot of new beekeepers that would probably read the same text books that I read and when they see a supercedure cell in a newly installed package or new queen, immediatley think there is a problem with that queen and then let the bees replace her. In my opinion, I would wait at least 2 - 3 weeks before letting them finish a cell and maybe up to a month. This is still a shorter time until brood emerges compared to waiting for a new queen to be made and then waiting for her brood to emerge. The gamble is that if the queen is a dud, you have wasted that amount of time. My thinking may not be feasible for a commercial operation, but for the hobbyist it is appropriate. Funny how different the techiques can be between hobbyist and comercials. It's all about time management I guess. It normally takes me about 2-3 hours to go thru my 14 hives really good. My back is usually aching after about 8. I can't imagine having to work even a modest 100. There again, if that's all I had to do was work bees, and not a 40 hour job as well, it would be alot easier I suppose.

[brooksbeefarm]

It!s alot like raising cattle,I!ve had cows that would skip having a calf every 2 to 3 yrs. so why keep a bad one when you can have a good one?I know alot of beekeepers are hobbiest, but why keep a queen around with bad traits that will produce others like her when you can have a queen with more desirable traits in your expensive equipment:scratch: