First year beekeeper and I've got 4 hives but this is a question about one that swarmed on me 3 times this year and has continuously superseded queens since.
Last week I was checking out my hives and noticed that this particular hive seemed more agitated than normal. Now these hives are only 200ft from my front door so i spend a lot of time watching them so I noticed something was up. Later that evening after things had quieted down I went out and could hear the telltale loud hum/low roar coming from the hive and thought for sure the hive was queenless so I waited a few days and decided to inspect it to see what i had. To my dismay I found only newly hatched and older larvae but no eggs and I did find about 8 supercedure cells. At this point I decided if the hive was queenless I would requeen as we don't have many drones anymore and I want this hive to build up before winter so I removed the supersedure cells. I went back in a few days later to look for any evidence of eggs(which I didn't find) removed more supersedure cells and ordered my new queen. Each time I went in I looked to see if there were any recently hatched queen cells and I also checked the existing ones for any evidence that they may have been killed by a new queen but never found any.
Today I went in to install the new queen and make sure I had removed all the queen cells and examine for eggs. I found one queen cell that I opened only to find a well formed queen pupae that was glistening white and appeared to still be alive in every respect so I assumed there were no new queens in the hive. I decided to check for eggs 1 more time and to my dismay I found one egg in a newly built queen cup at the bottom of a frame but that was it... I went through every frame twice and never found another.
Now when I do inspections I wear reading glasses so I have no trouble seeing and identifying eggs and I'm sure as I can be that there wasn't another egg in the hive but then where did this one come from and why weren't there any others and why was it in a swarm cell cup. None of the queen cells had been killed, no eggs for over a week but the egg came from somewhere and that's what is confusing me... I have a new queen that needs to be installed, I haven't found another but the few drones in the hive are dark so I've had a little trouble finding dark queens in the past.
Sorry for rambling but what should i do? Only one egg in over a week and in a queen cup no less... Do I install the queen in her cage and wait a few days to see what happens or do I continue to inspect the hive to see what happens over the next few day?
Thanks for your help
John
Last week I was checking out my hives and noticed that this particular hive seemed more agitated than normal. Now these hives are only 200ft from my front door so i spend a lot of time watching them so I noticed something was up. Later that evening after things had quieted down I went out and could hear the telltale loud hum/low roar coming from the hive and thought for sure the hive was queenless so I waited a few days and decided to inspect it to see what i had. To my dismay I found only newly hatched and older larvae but no eggs and I did find about 8 supercedure cells. At this point I decided if the hive was queenless I would requeen as we don't have many drones anymore and I want this hive to build up before winter so I removed the supersedure cells. I went back in a few days later to look for any evidence of eggs(which I didn't find) removed more supersedure cells and ordered my new queen. Each time I went in I looked to see if there were any recently hatched queen cells and I also checked the existing ones for any evidence that they may have been killed by a new queen but never found any.
Today I went in to install the new queen and make sure I had removed all the queen cells and examine for eggs. I found one queen cell that I opened only to find a well formed queen pupae that was glistening white and appeared to still be alive in every respect so I assumed there were no new queens in the hive. I decided to check for eggs 1 more time and to my dismay I found one egg in a newly built queen cup at the bottom of a frame but that was it... I went through every frame twice and never found another.
Now when I do inspections I wear reading glasses so I have no trouble seeing and identifying eggs and I'm sure as I can be that there wasn't another egg in the hive but then where did this one come from and why weren't there any others and why was it in a swarm cell cup. None of the queen cells had been killed, no eggs for over a week but the egg came from somewhere and that's what is confusing me... I have a new queen that needs to be installed, I haven't found another but the few drones in the hive are dark so I've had a little trouble finding dark queens in the past.
Sorry for rambling but what should i do? Only one egg in over a week and in a queen cup no less... Do I install the queen in her cage and wait a few days to see what happens or do I continue to inspect the hive to see what happens over the next few day?
Thanks for your help
John