Hey there everyone! I’m a 2nd year beekeeper from California and had some questions about the first split I did about a month ago. Some backstory, I have a hive that was doing extremely well in a double deep brood box and expanding rather rapidly so I decided to split them. I took 4 frames of brood from the parent hive, combined them with some 4 frames of food that I had stored and put two blank frames. The brood frames that were transferred had all stages of bees on it, eggs, larva and capped brood. The hive was split on March 6th, fast forward to now and for the most part they are doing rather well! They have exploded in population, started gathering their own honey and pollen and raised a queen. However, I have some concerns about the queen they raised. I first saw the newly emerged queen on the 20th of March, on this inspection I noticed no eggs and the queen was even making a “kazoo” noise with her wings. Was optimistic that the split would be successful, however I inspected the 25th and found the queen but there were still no eggs or any sign of brood. When I saw the queen on this inspection I noticed something that stood out to me, it looked as if the smaller pair of wings under her main set were damaged. By damaged I mean one looked as if it were permanently extended out and I couldn’t tell if the other one was even there or not. My question is should I think about purchasing a mates queen and requeening or give her some more time to see if she can complete her mating flight and return? Thank you in advance, below attached are the first pictures I got of said queen!
Almost 1 month old split
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Andrew, I generally allow about 30 days for a walk away split queen to start laying. I realize this is exciting but, STAY OUT OF THE HIVE!
The timeline is:
Check for capped queen cells on day 5.
Check for properly opened queen cell on day 14.
Leave the split alone for the next two weeks.
Check for eggs on day 28. If no eggs, check again on day 35.
You should not be looking for the queen per se, just evidence that she is there.
If you do not see eggs by day 35, put in another frame of eggs and a shake of nurse bees.
The timeline is:
Check for capped queen cells on day 5.
Check for properly opened queen cell on day 14.
Leave the split alone for the next two weeks.
Check for eggs on day 28. If no eggs, check again on day 35.
You should not be looking for the queen per se, just evidence that she is there.
If you do not see eggs by day 35, put in another frame of eggs and a shake of nurse bees.
First off thank you for your reply! I’d heard different timelines for when I should start seeing eggs and brood so was i sure when to check. Then I saw what i think is a damaged wing and became even more paranoid! I’ll follow your advice and give her a little more time before deciding my next course of action!
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