Supercedure!

[Mike in Amboy]

Figures once I decide thats what I'll do...forecast is rain for the next 3 days

[Zib]

Mike in Amboy - I am having the same problem. Going to look at them today and pot some more eggs in the hive making the Queen. You can check out my most recent post about. I think the pictures are good to see. Good Luck!

[PatBeek]

Newb question here.

So the hive that has the queen laying all the eggs, I am assuming that the bees can regulate those eggs to become queens, workers or drones according to what they feed them (royal jelly vs slave food)........or?

Can anyone give a Reader's Digest version of how they regulate the eggs depending on what situation they are in?

[Mike in Amboy]

PatBeek, thats correct. They can make a Queen at will with a fresh egg.

I managed to get out in a break in the rain today and got a frame of eggs transferred over to the Queenless hive. Frame looked like it had a good 300 or 400 eggs on it. Quite a few on both sides of the frame. I'm hopeful this works. The hive I took it from sure was mad about it! I didn't see the Queen in my other hive, so hopefully I didn't harm her any in the process, now I'm worried I'm a Queen slayer.

[robherc]

Can anyone give a Reader's Digest version of how they regulate the eggs depending on what situation they are in?

Unfertilized eggs (laid by queen w/o fertilizing by stored sperm, or laid by worker(s) in laying worker hive) = Drone, no 2 ways about it
Fertilized eggs fed royal jelly for 3 days, then nectar & pollen = workers
Fertilized eggs with enlarged cells, literally bathed in RJ until emergence = queens

I think that's about as "Reader's Digest" as I can make it

I didn't see the Queen in my other hive, so hopefully I didn't harm her any in the process, now I'm worried I'm a Queen slayer.

Welcome to the club
Either way, at least both hives have eggs now, so either/both can generate (a) new Queen(s) if needed.

[PatBeek]

......now I'm worried I'm a Queen slayer.

[PatBeek]

Unfertilized eggs (laid by queen w/o fertilizing by stored sperm, or laid by worker(s) in laying worker hive) = Drone, no 2 ways about it
Fertilized eggs fed royal jelly for 3 days, then nectar & pollen = workers
Fertilized eggs with enlarged cells, literally bathed in RJ until emergence = queens

I think that's about as "Reader's Digest" as I can make it

Thanks.

I saved that to a WORD document entitled:

"Bee info I want to keep"

.

[Mike in Amboy]

LOL, well played Pat!

[PatBeek]

.

I just found this extremely interesting quote from Sam Comfort's site:

The main thing is this bulk of bees has perhaps almost three weeks of no open brood, so the mites are not reproducing as well. A period of queenlessness is like fasting for the hive. Certain organs are resting and being cleansed.

Taken from his article entitled:

QUEEN BEES

So perhaps this is a GOOD period for your hive !!

.

.

[Mike Gillmore]

Mike,

I am assuming you installed a package, and it sounds like it was about 9 days ago.(If that is not the case then disregard the following)

If you put a frame of eggs in the colony they will start building queen cells but she will not even be ready to "start" laying eggs for another month or so (if everything goes right). When she does begin to lay eggs the original bees will be at least 40 days old and they are going to start dying off steadily. Then you have another 3 weeks period before you have "any" new bees even starting to emerge. Your colony will be dangerously low in population after 7-8 weeks go by.

In your situation I would spend the $25-$30 and order a queen right away. You need eggs in there right now to have replacement bees emerging in three or four weeks when the older bees start dying off. The other option would be to occasionally add a frame of capped brood over time to keep the population up. This is going to weaken your donor colony however.

Just something to think about.

[Mike in Amboy]

Thanks Mike, I just spoke to my local mentor and he said the same thing. So, new queen is ordered, she will be here next Tuesday. These little bugs have me more stressed out than my job! And I'm a 911 operator for crying out loud!

[Mike in Amboy]

Well, I got my new Queen Tuesday, went out and STILL couldn't find the old Queen, but was seeing a couple sporadic eggs here and there, so I knew there was one in there. My father in law needed to replace his Queen in one of his hives, so I gave him the one I picked up. Went back out again the last two days and just now, FINALLY, found the old Queen! Oddly enough, she has changed colors from when I installed them, her back end is almost completely yellow now, very little brown or black on her at all on the back end. I was surprised I found her, but a huge weight lifted off my shoulders for sure! Got a dab of yellow paint on her back, new Queen ordered for a Tuesday pick up! WHEW! Hopefully now we can get some warm weather and things will start to really pick up.

[robherc]

Sounds to me like you found the NEW queen...but now that she's started laying, I think the hive will be best served by leaving her to "do her business" for a couple weeks...get their numbers built back up

[Mike in Amboy]

Nope, not a new Queen. All the supercedure cells are still capped and full.