Queenless, Have varroa, 60+% Drones, no brood, What now?

[Kiwi Will]

Its beginning of summer here. My strong hive swarmed after a great start to the season. (My 1st yr of Bee keeping)
Hive got too busy & swarmed. :doh:
I caught swarm & started 2nd hive. 2 weeks later found no brood or queen.
Sorted a Queen today and she's in there. So hive # 2 is sorted (I hope)
Mean while, Hive # 1 where swarm came from, has no brood other than 20 odd drone cells with pupa left.
About 60% or possibly even up to 75% of life in the hive are drones ! (plus the varroa mite which I spotted scampering out of the direct sun light) :(

Honey stores that had not got to being capped are being robbed.
Quite a surprising amount of pollen has been laid down.

I wondered if I should add a new queen but then, there is few workers to care for her and no new ones (brood) on the way, so I am thinking that sadly the end will be nigh for that hive. :cry:

Does anyone think I have done the right thing or even better, does anyone have a suggestion how I can bring the hive back to life. If so, I'll go pick up a new Queen for that hive as well and have a bash at revitalizing the colony. That would make me really happy :applause:

Both hives are in the same urban location 30 metres apart.

Thanks in anticipation

Will

[RayMarler]

When the hive with queen starts laying (should be any second now), drop that hive on top of the queenless hive. She'll take control of it, but wait until she is laying. Then give it a month, and you can take a split out of the hive and add a queen or queen cell to it.

[honeyshack]

If i read correctly, your hive that swarmed still has capped drone cells? I suspect that where there was one swarm cell, there were more and you had a few after swarms.
That said, with capped drones, your lst queen has probably hatched or close to it and there is more than likely a virgin running around in the hive.
You have two choices.
1. do a combine a week or so after all the drones hatch, finding the mated queen of course
2. combine now and hope the possible virgin does not kill your new queen

how is the hive with no suspected queen? Noisy? Aggressive?

As well, time to test the level of infestation of your mites and get it under control before the honey flow or you will have a severe drop in honey production

[honeyshack]

Well, I should learn to read and comprehend better!
With that many drones you could also have a laying worker, or you could have a mated queen just getting her mojo working, or a queen that did not mate properly due to adverse weather conditions.

A few questions:

Again the tone of the hive and it's aggressiveness
if you were to add up all the bees in the hive about how many frames of bees?
How many weeks ago did the swarm happen?

Ask yourself if this hive is worth saving in the shape it is in. What you do now, will affect your winter survival. So take that into consideration

If you have a laying worker, you will have to take the downer hive out about 50-100 feet and shake all the bees on the ground. Then the bees that are not laying workers will find a home in your other hive

If you want, you could try to add a frame of eggs and larva from the good hive to the weak hive, to see if they start to making queen cells. However, at this stage of the game, I am against it if your weak hive is beyond repair, and your good hive is just getting going. It would weaken your good hive before it begins to thrive.

[Kiwi Will]

Thanks guys.
There is no sign of eggs being laid in either hive.
I would need to wait for the new Queen to get into gear and start laying before I could give a frame of brood to the drone dominant hive.
I expect that the newly Queened Hive would likely suffer because of the Nil brood that is the problem now. I don't know how many workers she would need to floating around before I could rob a frame of brood from that Queened hive.
I have put 4 strips of Bayvarol in the hive to try to give some control of the damb mites. Mites have only just been in the Sth Island of NZ for the last couple of year. It's arrival in NZ has apparently really knocked the number of bee keepers up in the Nth Is and so we are pretty concerned down here to.

Anyway, thanks again guys. It really appreciated to have you to lean on to gain ideas (and honey) from your wisdom. ta

[tecumseh]

kiwi will writes:
I caught swarm & started 2nd hive. 2 weeks later found no brood or queen.

tecumseh:
you should have waited a few more days before looking... two weeks is absolutely the minimum time and most time you will need to add 3 or 4 days to this. certainly the 'swarm' did not leave without a fuctional queen unless it was an absconding swarm (typical cause for european bees being starvation).

quite typically after swarming by the time the new queen may begins to lay everything has hatched beside a few drones... that is absolutely normal. the fact that the old hive now contain primarily drones likely suggest that the robbing has taken out whatever small worker population remained after the prime swarm left.

[Kiwi Will]

ah-huh. Hmmm, Im a learning!!! And it doesn't even hurt !
Thanks for that.

[dickm]

When the swarm leaves, they don't leave a queen behind; they leave a queen cell. Theres many a slip and a lot of time until she emerges and mates and starts laying. If a bird eats her, with the broodless state you could develop laying workers. OR the large # of drones may be evidence of queenlessness because drones are simply attracted to such hives.

dickm

[rwlaw]

Can't add anthing about the requeening issue, but the scampering about of the mites doesn't sound right. My mites moving on the trays is like watching paint dry, maybe you've got SHB eh?

[Adamd]

A swarm with a laying queen should have her laying again in 4 - 5 days - even on foundation. The swarmed hive will usually have queen cells in some sealed. These should be knocked back to one open cell with visible larva and royal jelly. Check again in a few days as the bees may have started to make more qwueen cells from any eggs that are present. Check each frame by shaking the bees off. (Don't shake the frame withe the queen you want though). It will be another week or so before she emerges once the cell has been sealed. She will then need to mate which will take maybe 3 weeks before she starts laying. It's advised to not open the hive until pollen is seen coming in or after 4 weeks from emergence.

If you are unsure if you have a queen in the hive, a test frame including eggs can be added. If there is no queen the bees will try to make one and you'll see by queen cells after a few days.

The wait for a new queen to lay is an agonising one and you nearly give up and at long last you open the hive to see 4 frames of brood! Bees usually get it right!