do i have a queen?

[Morgan]

Today was my first hive inspection 5 days after installation.

The combs have barely been drawn out and I cant find eggs or a queen. Queen cage was empty. I removed the combs around the cage; no eggs but a few filled with a watery substance. There is some pollen, no capped honey, and most frames haven't been touched.

Question: if I dropped my queen on the grass can she find her way back?

I need advice I'm a newbie and I'm losing confidence!

[dixiebooks]

Do you have a mentor from your local club who could come take a look at your hive? if not, call your club's president and see if he can recommend or find someone to come take a look. It's going to be difficult to diagnose the problem here as we can't see the hive. Perhaps you could give it a few days. Are you sure you have no eggs? Sometimes it takes awhile to recognize the eggs in the cells. It did for me, anyway. -james

[Adrian Quiney WI]

Are you feeding them?

[David LaFerney]

You're worrying too soon - especially if you are not using black foundation, but even then. A new queen might take a few days to lay, and a new bee keeper might have a really hard time finding eggs on anything other than black foundation - and even then if you don't know what you are looking for... You are a new bee keeper right?

Anyway, try to leave them alone until the weekend. If you don't see evidence of a queen by then it will be OK to worry a little bit.

[msapostol]

I usually wait until ten days after to check in on the hive. And yeah, sometimes it's hard to see eggs. I usually have to hold the frame up to the sun. Getting an experienced beekeeper to help you is an excellent idea.

[Morgan]

I have been feeding them. I check their entrance feeder twice a day.

I'll wait till this weekend and check on them again. This time I may take a frame and look at it closer w/o the veil on. I'm already blind and the veil really doesn't help at all.

I'm hoping I didn't botch the installation or lost my queen somehow.

Only time will tell and I'm sure this is a common concern for most beginners.

[RiodeLobo]

Try using magnification, I would always recommend wearing a veil, a sting in the eye ball and you may end up truly blind.
PS if you can ditch the entrance feeders and go to some type of internal feeding system. Entrance feeders can initiate robbing which will really set them back.
Welcome to a wonderful hobby that may cause you to loose sleep over a bug.

[Charlie B]

Too soon. Leave them alone for another two weeks. That will give you enough time to get a mentor to go in with you.

[guyross]

I had a queen fly off after opening the hive. I was told there was a 50% chance she would return and she did. Later she was superseded in December. There were few if any drones to mate with her so I lost the hive.

[jadell]

Just wanted to say What Riodelobo said again, I would definitely lose the entrance feeder. Use the jar, put a lit on it with lots of small holes (thumb tack size works for me), turn it upside down over the inner cover hole with another box around it and close up the hive. Really easy to check without opening the hive and they can keep it all for themselves. Another thing I use is free paint cans from the local paint store.