My Queen is gone!? Now what.

[Maxbaldwin]

This is my second year as a Beekeeper and my hive of 2 seasons has an issue. A little less then a month ago I inspected the hive and everything look normal. No signs of issues and plenty of brood. Today I inspected the hive and found it full of bee's but no sign old queen cells. No sigh of any brood with the exception of spotty drone cells on 3 of the frames. My Queen was clipped so I am not thinking they swarmed but i think she is dead. Thoughts? Do i have enough time to get a new queen??

[no1cowboy]

yes lots of time if you can get one

[Josh Carmack]

Make a new queen. Take a frame of brood from your good hive with standing eggs in it, and place it in the other hive. 21 - 23 or so days later you'll have a queen. Give her a week in good weather to mate, you have a nice young queen.

Shake all the bee's off the frame after stealing it, be careful you don't shake the good queen off and injure her though.

[Josh Carmack]

I just reread you post, I thought you said you had two hives. If you don't try and find a local beek that will sell or trade a frame of brood to you. My typical offer is to trade them, offer to give them a frame of capped brood back to them after your new queen starts to lay and the distressed hive recovers.

This option will only take a few more days than it wil to have one ordered. If it all goes wrong, you should still have time to order one. I just finally obtained a mated queen for a trapout that went wrong. They went two months without a queen.

[Ravenseye]

You have plenty of time for the hive to build up but I would get a queen in there soon. You don't want laying workers and you certainly don't want your hive to dwindle.

[Maxbaldwin]

Thanks!!
I put an order in for one today. With any luck i should have my replacement soon.

[AR Beekeeper]

I would still add a frame of uncapped worker brood from your other hive. This will help prevent laying workers from developing.

[Ross]

And about the time she comes in, my bet is you will find eggs from the nice young queen that is mating right now.

[dcross]

I was just going to say the timeline is about right for the new one to start laying:)

[Michael Bush]

As has been mentioned or at least hinted at, there may be a virgin about to lay. That's why a frame of eggs and open brood is the best solution as they probably have a queen. It takes around 28 days to get a laying queen and by then all the brood has emerged and there are no eggs or larvae and then suddenly there is brood. I killed a lot of good queens learning this.

[Maxbaldwin]

*UPDATE*
I put my queen cage in the hive on the 6th. I drove to the hive today 6/12 to check on the happenings. The queen was still in the cage. The bees never seemed to try and get to her threw the candy plug. So i gently pulled the cork out of the other side and set it on top of some frames. Well she came out and instead of going into the hive she took flight. And flew?? Great.
Is she going to find her own way in?? Any guesses?

[KQ6AR]

Since its been a couple weeks, did you check for eggs again?

[Michael Bush]

My bet is she smelled that other queen and ran...

[DRUR]

Couple of weeks ago my son (12) and I were checking a colony of our bees. Looked but couldn't find the queen but did see eggs, larva and sealed brood. We were riding on a golf card to check them. When we left, we were followed by an entourage of bees, not being aggressive, just following. My son finally notice the queen crawling on my shirt. We returned to the colony, placed her back in the top and when we drove off this time no bees followed. My guess is she was not very attached to the colony nor were the bees attached to her.

Danny

[wcubed]

Not to be disagreeable, the above advice is sound. But I notice that you noted "spotty drone brood". That's normally an indication of laying workers. Typically, drone brood layed by the queen is solid in a given area.

My guess is that the queen that you supplied, will be snuffed by laying workers. The recommendation from here, is treat the colony as a laying worker colony. Requeening is not likely to help.

Of course, you can confirm my quess by verifying that spotty drone brood is continuing to this point.

Walt
Free advice is often overpriced. (Mine and others)

[dcross]

Is she going to find her own way in?? Any guesses?

Probably will find her way back, was there any brood in the hive?

[DRUR]

Walt
Free advice is often overpriced. (Mine and others)

Yes, and many times advice you pay for is overpriced even more. Experience is a great teacher, but it is better to learn from the errors of others than your own. Nothing new under the sun. It is better to share what little knowledge we have with the understanding that you use it at your own risk. Thanks for your observation Walt it's a good one. Fortunately God gave some common sense, but I like the John Wayne quote [used here by someone] "Life is tough but when you are stupid its even tougher."

Danny

[Maxbaldwin]

I only looked at a few frames in the upper brood chamber. Same thing lots of honey and spotty brood. Less then my initial inspection. I did not look into the lower super. At that point, having seen my queen leave I was pretty much giving up. I had some hope that if I put things back to normal she would return. I will have to take another trip to take a look at them and do a more complete inspection.

[Maxbaldwin]

*UPDATE #2*
Well I checked it again and still nothing. No Brood or drone cells. I guess i order another queen or i combine with my other hive. Whats worse i opened my second hive and to my horror a colony of ants decided to make a home. I will have to get a bottom board that has a place i can put a oil or water moat. Whats the best way to get them out of the hive?
Is it always frustrating like this????

[Michael Bush]

The most reliable and least frustrating solution to suspected queenlessness is a frame of open brood and eggs. That way you don't interfere with what is happening as far as a virgin, but you make sure they are left without the means to make a queen if they need one.