Queenless question

[Yonah]

I had a few hives go queenless, it seemed. I hadn't checked the hives in a couple weeks due to some circumstances. When I came I found five hives with very little brood, a couple had none, and no eggs. I ordered some queens to be delivered in a couple days. The queens came I brought them to the bee yard. One had laying workers, many eggs in cells scattered all over. The next had eggs -- in a seemingly good pattern -- cell after cell. Most were centered. I saw a couple cells on a frame of eggs that seemed to have two eggs -- in the center making a "v". Could this be some really tricky laying workers?

OR

Do queens sometimes lay multiple eggs? I haven't ever seen it before, but my experience is pretty limited. Like I said it was just a couple cells, not the mess I have seen in other laying worker colonies.

Time will tell, but I wondered if anyone has an idea.

Thanks

[Ross]

Young queens will lay doubles until they get the hang of it at times.

[beecron]

There's always a good chance that some of your queens shut down for a while. If you're entering a dearth like many of us are or will be soon, they will shut down accordingly. They will still lay a few but not many until the nectar picks back up again.

[Yonah]

There's always a good chance that some of your queens shut down for a while. If you're entering a dearth like many of us are or will be soon, they will shut down accordingly. They will still lay a few but not many until the nectar picks back up again.

Thank you -- I was not aware of that. It doesn't seem to be the case at this point, but good info for the upcoming months. I have a number of top bar hives that are very full of brood and eggs. It was the Langstroth hives that went queenless. I know for sure two of them had swarmed in the last five weeks so I assume it just took the new queen a while to mate and get to work.

It is good to know new queens can be a little sloppy and lay two eggs on accident. I thought that was what was happening. I am going to check them tomorrow. And check the new queens I put in the laying worker hive which I shook out.

Thanks for the advice.

[stevedc]

Yonah, I'm new but here's my thoughts. Two weeks ago one of my langs was weak and I thought queenless and my TBH that a swarm moved into June 1st looked weak and queenless also. I took a frame of mixed brood from my strong lang and placed it in the weak lang hoping to get a few queen cells so I would have one for my TBH. Checked back this past Sunday and both hives had eggs in good pattern. I have the weather channel on my desktop and check it daily for weather and pollen. Tree pollen has been nill for about a week according to them and as Beecron said about nectar, I don't think bees can raise brood without pollen either. So maybe the queens just shut down for a while. I still did not see either queen.