Three and a half weeks ago, March 15 specifically I made a mistake and squished a queen. The hive is strong but was fairly hot, I planned on re-queening her anyhow but not this early. Unable to purchase a queen for a month I decided to roll the dice and raise a new one. I should mention that I was a week into the process of converting from deep to medium frames; this hive had no eggs or larvae less than 7 days old as the queen was excluded and did not lay while excluded. I swapped in a notched frame from another hive and they built out the queen cells nicely. A week ago this past Saturday (March 29) I found that a queen had emerged and the remaining queen cells (two) were torn open on the sides, I assumed this was the first to emerge dispatching the others? I did not see the queen at this time but did not spend too much time looking as the weather was cool in the mid 50s and I did not want to chill the remaining worker/drone brood that had not yet hatched.
Yesterday, we had a mid 60s day so I popped the hive open at about 3 pm to swap in some bare frames for freshly drawn natural cell frames for later use. What follows are what I observed yesterday.
Observations:
There are no eggs or larvae yet which I see as normal given our temps have been a little cool for a mating flight, high 50s till yesterday.
Temperament was very calm with very little smoke. I did however witness a lot of bees standing on the top bars and entrance fanning what I think was the homing pheromone. Might this indicate the queen might have been out on a mating flight? I did not see the queen in the hive but I'm not the best spotter anyhow.
Storing lots of nectar and pollen
Lots of Drones in the hive.
My question is... Should I add in another frame of open brood as insurance against a failed mating attempt or to prevent a worker starting up before the queen? Mid 70s today.
Thank you in advance for your opinions.
Yesterday, we had a mid 60s day so I popped the hive open at about 3 pm to swap in some bare frames for freshly drawn natural cell frames for later use. What follows are what I observed yesterday.
Observations:
There are no eggs or larvae yet which I see as normal given our temps have been a little cool for a mating flight, high 50s till yesterday.
Temperament was very calm with very little smoke. I did however witness a lot of bees standing on the top bars and entrance fanning what I think was the homing pheromone. Might this indicate the queen might have been out on a mating flight? I did not see the queen in the hive but I'm not the best spotter anyhow.
Storing lots of nectar and pollen
Lots of Drones in the hive.
My question is... Should I add in another frame of open brood as insurance against a failed mating attempt or to prevent a worker starting up before the queen? Mid 70s today.
Thank you in advance for your opinions.