Puzzled by the pollen

[Nanook]

I have been told that if your hive is not bringing in pollen that you need to check if you are queenless....My question is if the hive has a laying worker doesnt the hive need pollen to feed the drone cells too? If that is the case should the more accurate statement be that no pollen means the hive is not queen right? I'm just trying to fully understand the process and I'm stuck on this issue.....

Nanook

[adam@azapiaries]

How about no pollen coming in means no pollen to come in!

[Nanook]

yeah, that part I get....

[JRG13]

it can go both ways Nanook, bees need to eat pollen too though not just brood.

[jadell]

I haven't seen pollen coming in for a little bit now, they have plenty stored. I agree with Adam, just means there's none to bring in at the moment. Plenty of nectar though for me!

[Nanook]

Hey, Love the Asheville area beautiful mountains and the town is pretty entertaining...

My issue is that I have been told that no pollen coming in is a possible indicator of a queen less hive, obviously this can only be the case if pollen is available. Wouldn't bees bring in pollen if there was a laying worker as well?

Good nectar flow here as well, but we're looking at drought conditons any day now...

[JRG13]

Why else would you think you're queenless? Pollen availability is affected by time of day as well as what's kind of pollen is available. If you're checking at the end of the day you might not see much, check mid morning and it might be boatloads coming in. You can't freak out at every little nuance you see and hear. Sometimes bees won't bring in pollen if they're queenless, sometimes you won't notice any difference. If you think you're queenless look for eggs if you feel so inclined to do so.

[Nanook]

I began to be concerned when there wasn't any pollen coming in for close to 2 weeks and my other hives were collecting pollen. So now I have learned that the pollen issue is not a reliable indicator as to a healthy hive. The time of day observation might be an explaination, thank you....Guess I got my undies in a bunch for nothing....Now I know.

[minz]

So tear into them and look at the two different hives. Let us know your observations (now I am curious). Watching the bees in two hives that should be the same, acting different is a good indicator. My 2C is find out why.

[Nanook]

Here's my conclusion...please give me your thoughts....The hive I was concerned about is my well established parent hive that threw out 3 swarms early this spring...I think they had enough pollen stored up and it took sometime for the new queen to start laying eggs. Those 2 facts coupled with the hugh early flow lead to the bees not bringing in pollen....Now the other hives I compared too are swarms from this year and not as large of a colony,so they are still building up the hive and need to bring in the pollen to feed the brood...In hind site I was not comparing apples to apples but a young hive to an established hive....

[jadell]

I would just take a look and see what's going on. Theories can be thrown at ya all day. I've had queenless hives that looked completely normal from the outside and vice versa.

[Nanook]

I hear you...I'm sort of a black and white kind of guy and I'm going to have to learn all of the shades of grey on the subject of bees....I love the challange....

[johng]

One thing you will learn is nothing is black and white with bees. You are right about the pollen. Bringing in pollen is only a good sign. It does not tell you everyting. As you already guessed. laying worker hives will bring in pollen to feed the drone larva they are raising. You always need to check a hive that has swarmed a couple weeks after the swarm to make sure everything went good with the new queen getting mated. Because the old queen lays a bunch of eggs before they swarm. So by the time you notice there are not many bees coming and going it is too late. They may have been queenless for a couple months.

[Nanook]

I'm trying to look in on each hive every 2 weeks to check on their progress and learn more about the activity with in the hive...I had one queenless hive I discovered 3 weeks ago that I combined with another hive sucessfully using the old newspaper trick between hive bodies. It was from a walk away split I did last spring that I had to nurse thru the fall and winter, but they did survive....It just never got really strong, so it worked out for the better I think. Interesting how I read on this site that some think the walk away queens are not as strong, this hive seemed to fit that bill....