requeen or workers laying?

[MDenver]

Hi,

First time beekeeper and I think there might be something wrong with my hive. I was hoping someone might take a look at the photos I took on the link below and give me their opinion as to what I might do.

www.gabionmedia.com/honey_bees

Thanks!

[Sasha]

What do you think is the problem? I see you have brood, honey, pollen...
Why introduce a new queen? If you have all drone brood without worker brood thats a sign of no queen. But from the pictures I cant see that is the case. Look for very young brood ( eggs really) I think I have seen one egg on one of the pictures.

Try to find the queen. Its not impossible especially if this is just a nuc or a smal hive.
Good luck!

[The Honey House]

The queen is on the frame which is bee_13 and bee_15
(Nice picture!)


Looks on the weak side but I think I see larva in some of the cells.
Put the feed to them and let them do thier thing.


Good luck.

[jasontatro]

The queen is on the frame which is bee_13 and bee_15

Yep.... I see her!!!

[MDenver]

I'm going to let her keep going her thing and hope all well.

Thanks for your help!

[dickm]

Drone brood doesn't photograph very well but it seems there is an awful lot of it and in peculiar locations. I think this is a terrible queen. The patterns are likely so bad because of genetics between her and the drone she mated with. This causes half the eggs to get eaten. She re-lays in those cells and you have the buckshot pattern you see. Also she may not be very fertile giving rise to drone brood in worker cells. Off her today.


Dick Marron

[riverrat]

If you just installed the package may 23 I would give them some time the queen hasnt been laying long. so there wont be much capped brood. Put a feeder on to see if they take the feed and check it in a couple of weeks you will see a big difference

[Phaedrus]

That was very cool. I was able to recognize the queen...

[Ishi]

If you install them on foundation and they want drones they will not stay with the imprint of the foundation and will draw some drone cells. I hived swarms on PF 100 and could not get them to draw out nice worker brood until I put a frame of drone foundation in or a frame with 2 inches of plastic foundation with ¼ inch of the foundation sticking out of a split bottom bar for them to use as a guide and they fill the rest of the frame with drone brood which I cut out for mite control.

[MDenver]

Why do you think she would want so many drones? Better Bee, which is where I got the package, suggested that I add a second super to give her a chance to lay a better pattern and then check back on two weeks.

Any thoughts?

[riverrat]

with only 5 frames drawn out I wouldnt add another super.