View Full Version : queenless(?) hive question
smith
06-04-2009, 05:19 PM
I have a very heavily populated three deep with no evidence of eggs or larvae, just capped brood and several queen cells. I'm going to let nature take its course, but was wondering if the massive bee population in the hive will continue to forage while waiting for a new queen to emerge.
bakerboy
06-04-2009, 05:28 PM
Make three hives out of it, or two. Just make sure each hive has either the queen or a cell.
The massive population will continue to forage until they swarm. You likely have a queen, but she'll be leaving soon.
How many queen cells are there and where on the frames are they located? I have read that Sometimes in preparation for a swarm queens stop laying, probably so that they can reduce in size enough to fly. If you want more colonies and not concerned about honey this year, you might consider a split, especially if you have nice queen cells on several different frames. Also, a swarm may have already issued with the laying queen, and virgins are waiting to hatch, just need more information to make an informed decision.
Danny
sorry didn't answer your question. Yes, the bees will continue to forage, and produce more than normal honey, as they have not brood or eggs to feed or care for.
Danny
gmcharlie
06-04-2009, 07:34 PM
yes they will forage, but you better do as suggested and split them or they will probably swarm with the new queens.....
Split into 3, hives a frame with queens in each box.... after the new queens hatch and start laying THEN decide to recombine or keep 3 seperate
If you leave them alone, one queen hatches, kills the rest of the larva queens, and then goes to mate... only 60% chance she will return and lay well...... so good chance you end up with no queen at all...
Split them and your odds of at least one good queen jump to about 96%.....
if its a super hive you want might look at a tower colony with 2 queen base and supers overlapping both boxes.
Martin
06-05-2009, 01:50 AM
if its a super hive you want might look at a tower colony with 2 queen base and supers overlapping both boxes.
Hi All
Can you do this ? I'm assuming you mean have a base box with a Queen separator before adding another top box with another Queen followed by another Queen separator followed by 2 or more top boxes for your honey production
Is that correct ?
Cheers Martin
gmcharlie
06-05-2009, 06:12 AM
http://maarec.psu.edu/CCDPpt/TwoQueenSystemFeb2009.pdf
this is what I had in mind, only use one deep on each side. maximize bees working the supers until queens are back laying, then recombine if you like. or let them build up for winter and have spare hives..... Keep in mind that of the 3, odds are 1 of them won't suceed at a new queen.
smith
06-05-2009, 10:50 AM
We found a total of about 10 queen cells in the middle of three frames, although two were near the bottom of the frames. So we did a single split, leaving queen cells in each hive. In doing the split, we took frames from the original three deep and moved them into a new box and put them in a new location. The original colony is still a three deep, now with 10 empty frames replacing the various honey, brood and drawn foundation we removed. We did search for the original queen (unmarked) and didn't find her, although with the bee numbers we were dealing with I wouldn't put much weight on that. Am I correct in that if we do not find a queen in a couple of weeks, we could still add a bred queen bought commercially and save the colony?