Two weeks ago I found that one of my hives was queenless. It also had very little stores of honey/pollen. Luckily I had a nuc available, so I merged it with the queenless hive using a newspaper combine (nuc moved to a brood box and on the top) and also added an internal feeder (the two frame kind) full of syrup and a pollen patty.
I inspected it yesterday for the first time. When I first opened it the bees were making a lot of noise so I initially thought they were still queenless, but after a brief inspection found the queen on a frame in the top box. I also saw capped brood. I didn't see eggs/larvae, but only looked at one or two frames and stopped looking after I saw the queen. The bees were working on the pollen patty, but hadn't taken much of the syrup. Not a ton of bees, not surprising given the situation.
My thought is that as long as the queen seems to be doing OK there's not much I can do at this point other than hope she produces enough bees to make it thru the winter. I do have a couple other hives so I could take a frame of bees from one if that's a good idea, though I'm somewhat reluctant to do so now if it might endanger the donor hive. I was surprised to hear them making so much noise as from what little I know that's a sign of queenlessness. Any tips? thanks!
I inspected it yesterday for the first time. When I first opened it the bees were making a lot of noise so I initially thought they were still queenless, but after a brief inspection found the queen on a frame in the top box. I also saw capped brood. I didn't see eggs/larvae, but only looked at one or two frames and stopped looking after I saw the queen. The bees were working on the pollen patty, but hadn't taken much of the syrup. Not a ton of bees, not surprising given the situation.
My thought is that as long as the queen seems to be doing OK there's not much I can do at this point other than hope she produces enough bees to make it thru the winter. I do have a couple other hives so I could take a frame of bees from one if that's a good idea, though I'm somewhat reluctant to do so now if it might endanger the donor hive. I was surprised to hear them making so much noise as from what little I know that's a sign of queenlessness. Any tips? thanks!