Do they have pollen ? If there is no pollen stored in frames, and none coming in, you have your answer.

 

There is pollen in some frames and I watched workers bringing in more.

 

The brood frames in one of my hives have only drone cells, and there are only a few of even those.

Most likely this is the last batch of the hatching brood (the long-playing drone brood that is).
Sounds like you are in the summer dearth and the bees are feeling it (no brood) - which is a proper thing to do.

 

That sounds like good news. So the best thing to do is just wait and see what happens?

 

If none of your other hives are shutting all the way down like this, I’d be a little concerned. You might try giving them a frame from one of your other hives that has eggs on it. If they draw Queen cells, then requeen. Requeening at this point won’t spread the genetics or traits of the Queen currently in the hive since it sounds like she doesn’t have any eggs in there that could be used to raise a new Queen. If there are that many bees in the hive and the queen is failing, it seems like a waste of a strong workforce not to requeen if needed.

 

Is there nectar in the cells of the brood frames ( honey bound)? J

 

Nope, they are almost completely empty.

 

Is the only brood drone in drone sized cells or drone in worker sized cells?

 

They are drone size cells, but there are very few of them.

 

Sounds like summer dearth, when brood rearing slows way down. Now is the time to do a series of OAV treatments while there is little brood, and another series once the drones emerge.

 

Hey Tim, Just curious - How did your hive turn out After Aug 1st the post just stopped.

 

Its unfortunate but predictable. Lots of threads with informative Q & A and discussion suddenly just disappear without explanation.

 

Might be that the queen wasn't mated well and just ran out. Curious that they didn't supersede her.

I'm curious... Had you recently marked that queen? I had a terrible problem with that last year after marking my queens. You can search for that thread.

Anyway... One of my queens had stopped laying completely like yours. (Although most of my hives had problems at the time) As an experiment, because I was running out of ideas, I pulled the queen and some bees and put them in a box. I gave the original hive some young brood from the one hive that were still doing well.

The original hive made a queen and all was well.

The marked queen in the split laid a little, and I thought all was well, but they remained the same size and soon, they killed her or she died or whatever, just like the others. So I gave them some brood from the one hive still going and they made a queen and all was well. It was a scary time for me. Almost lost all my hives!

In my case, I was putting a dot of ink on my queens while on the comb, without pulling her or drying her off by blowing on her. For some reason, a day or two after marking my queen, she would just be gone. Out of 10 or 11 queens, maybe 2-3 survived after marking. I think the solvent in the ink poisoned her and/or made her smell funny and the bees were killing her. But I have no idea why they didn't make Q cells to replace her. The smell threw them off?

That being said, I'm not thrilled with the idea of marking queens anymore. Never again with that pen, that's for sure!

Sorry about your bees. I hope this year is better for you. Thanks for the follow up.

 

Might be that the queen wasn't mated well and just ran out. Curious that they didn't supersede her.

I'm curious... Had you recently marked that queen? I had a terrible problem with that last year after marking my queens. You can search for that thread.

Anyway... One of my queens had stopped laying completely like yours. (Although most of my hives had problems at the time) As an experiment, because I was running out of ideas, I pulled the queen and some bees and put them in a box. I gave the original hive some young brood from the one hive that were still doing well.

The original hive made a queen and all was well.

The marked queen in the split laid a little, and I thought all was well, but they remained the same size and soon, they killed her or she died or whatever, just like the others. So I gave them some brood from the one hive still going and they made a queen and all was well. It was a scary time for me. Almost lost all my hives!

In my case, I was putting a dot of ink on my queens while on the comb, without pulling her or drying her off by blowing on her. For some reason, a day or two after marking my queen, she would just be gone. Out of 10 or 11 queens, maybe 2-3 survived after marking. I think the solvent in the ink poisoned her and/or made her smell funny and the bees were killing her. But I have no idea why they didn't make Q cells to replace her. The smell threw them off?

That being said, I'm not thrilled with the idea of marking queens anymore. Never again with that pen, that's for sure!

Sorry about your bees. I hope this year is better for you. Thanks for the follow up.

Wow, that's rough. You would think the ink made for marking queens wouldn't be detrimental, but who knows.

I didn't mark my queen. All my hives are from swarm traps, and although marking the queen would sure help me find her when I need to, I prefer not to mark her.

I have three hives left, and they seem to be doing okay.