I did a split about 4 weeks ago with a hive that had 3 swarm cells that were hard capped. Checked them yesterday and found this beautiful huge queen. She was so plump that I don't see how she cold get in a cell to lay. In fact she had not laid anything. No brood, no eggs, nada. I felt like she should have been laying, but after splitting we had cold weather and wet weather. So she may not have got mated. I also noted a big die off over the last week, but there were still plenty of bees to sustain the colony. I requeened this colony with a bought mated queen and took a frame of brood and this non laying queen and put them in a NUC and moved to another yard. Any possibility she may mate yet or has she missed her chance. Hate to pinch such a fine specimen. she is much bigger than any of my other queens including the bought one I requeened with.
Does a new queen only have one mating window.
1 - 15 of 15 Posts
Joined
·
1,721 Posts
I think i've read she has a 8 to 10 day window.
Yes, a fat and plump queen can mate. I had seen them before.
Because you did not track her exact hatching date, it is hard to tell her window of opportunity.
Even after she got mated, it will take another week or so before she is laying. A virgin queen
is a lot lighter in size compare to a well mated queen which is 3x bigger in her size. I would wait
another week or more to see. Look closely inside the cells that you might miss seeing the eggs. Often I
did.
Because you did not track her exact hatching date, it is hard to tell her window of opportunity.
Even after she got mated, it will take another week or so before she is laying. A virgin queen
is a lot lighter in size compare to a well mated queen which is 3x bigger in her size. I would wait
another week or more to see. Look closely inside the cells that you might miss seeing the eggs. Often I
did.
beepro. A queen usually starts to lay about 2 days after she mates.
ramdino. Ideally you should not move a virgin queen from one place to another as she will have orientated to the original mating site and could get lost if she still has to take her mating flight. You queen from the description looks like she has mated already and will likely start to lay very soon. You can also tell if a queen is mated by her behaviour on the comb and the behaviour of the workers towards her. Workers appear to be much less interested in a virgin queen and do not typically form a court around her.
A newly emerged queen starts to take orientation flights about 4-5 days after emergence.
She can take a mating flight from day 6 or 7 onwards.
Some books will tell you a virgin is stale and will not mate 21 days after emergence but although most start to lay within 2 weeks of emergence I get the odd one which takes 4 weeks.
ramdino. Ideally you should not move a virgin queen from one place to another as she will have orientated to the original mating site and could get lost if she still has to take her mating flight. You queen from the description looks like she has mated already and will likely start to lay very soon. You can also tell if a queen is mated by her behaviour on the comb and the behaviour of the workers towards her. Workers appear to be much less interested in a virgin queen and do not typically form a court around her.
A newly emerged queen starts to take orientation flights about 4-5 days after emergence.
She can take a mating flight from day 6 or 7 onwards.
Some books will tell you a virgin is stale and will not mate 21 days after emergence but although most start to lay within 2 weeks of emergence I get the odd one which takes 4 weeks.
She just kept running away from me. She did not have any workers following her or looking like they were attending to her. She just kept running to the opposite side of the frame and she was fast to be so plump
Usually, but I had one in a mini nuc take 43 days to start laying!
I was checking it carefully and it was definitely the same queen.
The earliest I have seen from emergence to eggs is 8 days which means the queen probably took her mating flight on day 6 from emergence. Wish it was like that all the time but weather is a huge factor.
Joined
·
1,976 Posts
Sounds bit like some infection to me. Was the tip of the abdomen normal looking tapering or more like bluntended?
Sometimes they get infections and then they don´t start laying. The queen has mated and is quite big (wide) but the end of the abdomen is blunt in these cases.
>Usually, but I had one in a mini nuc take 43 days to start laying!
I'm sure there is some point of diminishing returns and not a calendar cutoff day...
Huber observed that a blunt rear is often a sign of a drone laying queen.
I'm sure there is some point of diminishing returns and not a calendar cutoff day...
Huber observed that a blunt rear is often a sign of a drone laying queen.
Ok after moving her into a nuc with a frame of bees and a few brood she has started to lay but the odd thing is she is only laying on the new comb. She will not lay on the old comb. Anyone experienced this before where a new queen will not lay on old comb. This comb is really old. Also I noticed that a few of the cells had two eggs. The single and even double eggs are at the bottom in the center rather than on the side or somewhere awkward like a laying worker might do. It's almost like she had to lay a few before she could get it right.
1 - 15 of 15 Posts
Join the discussion
