Four 3lb packages a week ago, when will I see eggs?

[kustomizer]

Howdy, new parrents here or should I say new panicing here.

Last Wednesday we put our new bees in their new homes, we checked them out Sunday and found 3 queens out and one almost out of her cage. We have plenty of syrup with them, they are making lots of comb and putting the syrup in most of it, pollen in some, but I see no eggs.

Does this sound normal?

When might I see some eggs?

Where will I find the eggs if they have syrup and pollen in all the cells?

If they only live about a month, and it takes a month to make more, will I run out before I get more?

Any help may ease our little minds, we have been reading here and in our stack of books and magazines but timelines are somewhat vague

[RayMarler]

Take it easy, the bees are doing fine. It takes 10 days for a queen that has gone off laying to start laying again. I'd not be worried unless I saw no eggs after 14 days, which I'm sure you'll find eggs by then. Bees live 6 weeks in the busy season, up to 6 months over winter. You'll still have plenty by time eggs start hatching. Once the eggs start hatching, they'll bee the nurse bees to take care of more brood. It's a progressive thing, more and more eggs get laid as more eggs hatch to take care of brood... fast faster more more bees. :D

[frysl]

Kustomizer,
Please post what you find out as your situation develops. I am basically in the same boat as you.
Eight days after installing bees I took a look in the hive. The one frame with comb drawn was full of syrup. The adjacent frames were in the process of being drawn. Now, another 3 days later, I see a lot of bees coming into the hive with pollen. I will go back into my hive this Friday and hope to see eggs.
Steve

[kustomizer]

We will check in on them again in a few days, where will she put the eggs if the others fill all of the holes with syrup and pollen?

[BEES4U]

I shook out four pound packages on a Monday, let the bees settle down for two days, replaced the Calif Mini cage cork with a plastic candy tube, waited four days, pulled the empty queen cages and checked for eggs in a few hives
I saw a queen laying eggs in an eight inch oval pattern!
Regards,
Ernie

[RayMarler]

We will check in on them again in a few days, where will she put the eggs if the others fill all of the holes with syrup and pollen?

The queen will lay right up under the edge of the nectar and pollen being stored on the frames... Eggs in the middle surrounded by pollen and nectar around top and sides of the frames.

[kustomizer]

Very exciting, can't wait to see them take off.
thanks
mark

[frysl]

I shook out four pound packages on a Monday, let the bees settle down for two days, replaced the Calif Mini cage cork with a plastic candy tube, waited four days, pulled the empty queen cages and checked for eggs in a few hives
I saw a queen laying eggs in an eight inch oval pattern!
Regards,
Ernie

You put the bee's in a hive that had plenty of comb built already, is that correct?
Did the bee's build comb from the frame up for the queen to lay eggs in 4 days?
Steve

[icodebot]

I'm in the same boat. Installed my first 3 pound package. Opened it exactly 1 week later. They built out about 4 frames in that time and stored a lot of syrup and pollen. I was amazed at the amount of progress they have made in such a short period of time!

The center frames were so thick with bees I could not find the queen or see any eggs. I'm such a novice at this point, I could have easily missed both. (They used green to mark the queen, why not hot pink or something?)

Anyway I'm worried I don't have a queen, I'll look again next weekend.

[sierrabees]

Don't count on seeing eggs unless you have awfully good eyes and dark comb. My eyes are not as good as they used to be, and after about thirty years of having bees, I have a hard time identifying eggs in new comb now. By two or two and a half weeks you should start seeing capped brood and larvae near the capping stage. If you don't see it in one of the hives, steal some brood and eggs from one of the other queens and give it to them. That will give them a chance to make a new queen if they need to and keep them from developing a laying worker.

[frysl]

Not to alarm you, but...
I was also unable to find my queen. After 10 days I took another look in and saw a lot of eggs, the problem was, I saw multiple eggs in each cell! Fortunately, i have a very experienced bee keeper just a few blocks away. he came over and we went through the hive from one end to the other and no queen. She had died or was rejected by the hive and one (or more) worker bees took to laying eggs.
We (I) picked up a new queen and have placed her, along with a few frames of capped brood from one of my friends hives and put her in a new hive on top of the old one on Sat. in an effort to get the hive Queenright.
Keep your fingers crossed!
Go to bushfarms.com and take a look at Mr. Bush's article on laying workers if you see the multiple eggs in each cell, or you can contact me. I'm no expert, but I now have a good amount of research and first hand experience with this problem.
Steve

[frysl]

I'm now having to wear reading glasses. A friend, who is a very experienced bee keeper, keeps a small hand held magnifying glass in his kit so that when the sun over the shoulder is not enough, he can still see the newly laid eggs.
Steve

[sierrabees]

I raise my own queens and it's fairly common when I get too impatient and check a breeding nuc as soon as I think the queen should be laying for me to find multiple eggs and a terrable egg pattern. I wasted a lot of good queens over the years before I learned that some queens have to get rolling for a while before they start laying in a normal manner. If the bees have been in the hive less than a month it is unlikely that you have a laying worker. It takes over thirty days from the time they become queenless for a worker to develope the ability to lay eggs.

A few years ago I had one hive where I found a pattern of multiple eggs and added a marked queen. two weeks later I found the marked queen in the upper brood box, and three laying queens in the lower box. My bees just don't read the book or follow the rules.

[Cacklewack]

If you are having trouble spying eggs, try holding the frame/bar up toward the sun and looking through it; the little grains of rice are eggs!

Matt

[kustomizer]

Yesterday I decided to look in the hive with the least activity of the four. I found two frames with half to two thired capped brood surrounded by capped larva, eggs and some capped food stores ( pollen and sugar water ). My question is I keep hearing about eggs and brood being in a good pattern, how does one conclude if this is a good pattern or not?
thanks
mark

[jdb1930]

As long as you don't have any large gaps in brood then you are fine.

[Haddon]

I recieved a 3# package last tuesday with a dead queen supplier replaced the queen last friday or at least that is when she got here. I installed the new queen cage friday at lunch and last night (3 and half days later) I opened the hive I didnt see any drawn out comb saw some little spots where the bee had started drawing comb and they still had not released the queen they had softened the candy to a mush but had not eaten enough of it out. They were extremely protective of her so I uncorked the other end and placed the cage on another frame for her to crawl out I hope I did things correctly but that is what i did. I am kind of starting to worry reading that you all have drawn comb after a week I dont think I could give them anymore sorces of sugar water if I tried they have a mason jar front feeder and a gallon chick waterer with sugar water siting on top of the frames in a empty super with newpaper around it to dicourage comb building in the empty one.

My first hive and things just dont seem to be going good from the start. I think they got alittle hot in shiping had alittle over a tea cup of dead bee when the package arived.

Thanks for any help you can give.
Michael

[icodebot]

I am kind of starting to worry reading that you all have drawn comb after a week I dont think I could give them anymore sorces of sugar water if I tried they have a mason jar front feeder and a gallon chick waterer with sugar water siting on top of the frames in a empty super with newpaper around it to dicourage comb building in the empty one.

How much syrup are they taking a day? Mine have been taking about a quart a day give or take, from a top feeder. I also mix in honey-bee-healthy.

[kustomizer]

As long as you don't have any large gaps in brood then you are fine.

I have four hives of the same age ( new packages ), three of them have most of each side of two or three frames are covered with covered brood, larva and eggs, one has no larva, or brood, but does have some eggs here and there but not too many. That queen doesn't look like the other three either her abdomen is not much bigger than a workers where the others are about twice as big as a worker. Am I worried too soon or is she a bad girl?

[Haddon]

They have eaten about 5 quarts in 7 days and that might an over estimate might be more like 4, but today when I got home they were flying all around which is a good change. Now they are in a field of clover in bloom so they could be feeding there but I dont know.