Queen Problems

[ajs32]

So i have now gone through three queens in one hive, they get released fine, then few days later gone...limited covered brood left,, hive has about a dozen or more queen cells in various stages. i am in upstate ny, concerned she wont breed up in time for winter. hive seems otherwise healthy. queens have been all marked. did see a strange shaped bee, had the big black spot on back like queen, no wings though and was more wasp shaped( was defin. apis though). other thing not sure i made mistake or not...other hive i was inspecting and second deep is full o honey, saw they had built combe between bottom of #2 and top of first deep so i removed and cleaned...is this that big a deal or just let it go next time?

[franktrujillo]

well, sorry for the trouble your haveing..bees have a mind of there own some time the bees will get it in there mind they want to choose there own queen....let them you'll be better off they'll make a way sometimes we get our hands in were it doesn't belong..read that somewhere about the bees sometimes wanting there own queen.when getting close to winter i'm leaving all comb but last winter i went in with a weak nuc..That was my first hive bought a package that came at end of may and was superceded,harassed by bee birds,etc..this year split twice removed 1 that was sprayed and 1 that i gave away..kept the one that was sprayed for experiment so far they swarmed..if your wondering i destroyed all contaminated comb..so far no more build up seems to have a constant population but no increase...

[Parke County Queen]

was more wasp shaped( was defin. apis though

I've seen these bees too. What are they? Almost like freaky little queens.

[IndianaHoney]

ajs32....I've seen this happen many times. If the hive has queen cells, or if the hive is in a queen cell building mode, they will almost always kill any introduced queen. Your only choices are to let them finish their queen cells and raise their own queen, or two...you can kill ever queen cell and leave them hopelessly queenless for a day, then they will have no choice but to accept the new queen. This often happens to me when I make nucs in the spring. I usually have to make the nuc, then give them a queen. I leave the cap on the queen candy so they can't release her, then I go back and scrape queen cells four days later, and then I remove the cap from the plug in the queen cage.

PCQ.....if I'm correctly picturing what your seeing with these freaky looking queens.....it is genetic, and I've seen a couple small cell hives make them. They are simply skinny at the waist like a paper wasp, but otherwise fine. Another possibility is that you're seeing paper wasps in or around your hive. I often see them between my inner and outer covers.

[Skinner Apiaries]

Don't know about the disease, I've heard of symptoms like disfigured bees. I'm sure by the time I find something one of these experienced guys will say something enlightening. Or maybe I'm just crazy. On the Queens, always remember, the Hive Honors the Queen Cells. Thats why when I do splits I put an excluder betwen bodies before splitting, makes sure theres no "young" brood to be made into a cell when I split 2 days before I cram queen cages between frames. Of course after a couple days, Ive had success in spraying the colony with vanilla-syrup and just dropping a well syruped queen in. Haven't done that but 4 or 5 times as my own little experiement, but I didnt lose any.

[Bud Dingler]

probably got a drone layer developing. so they think they have a queen.

[chillardbee]

Most likely a rogue virgin. If a queen is introduced at the same time a virgin is about to hatch, lots of different things could happen. In your case, I think they tried balling the virgin and probably damage her wings. they probably balled the other queen too. If any kind of queen is left in a hive wether it be a virgin, laying queen, drone layer or if it has progressed to laying workers, then any introduction atempt of a caged queen will most certanly fail and in the disruption of the pheromones from the new queen, can lead to possible balling and damage to any other queen still in the hive. if at all possible, cull all queen cell, get rid of any and all queens left in the hive, then intro your queen. allow 4-5 days before release.