Hi - I'm a first time beekeeper. I installed two locally purchased Italian packages about eight days ago. I put them in new eight frame Langstroth hives with medium supers. I'm trying to go foundationless. The bees looked good and the queens were alive and seemed fine but they were fairly small. I put the queens between two frames and pulled the cork from the candy end. I checked them three days later and they had been released.
I've been feeding them syrup with a jar over the opening on the inner cover in an empty super. They've been taking about 1/2 to 1 pint per day per hive. The bees seem to be doing okay and seem to have been actively foraging. I've noticed them bringing quite a bit of pollen in.
I did an inspection of one of the hives today. They were drawing the comb out nice and straight. They had drawn out about 1/3 of the frame space. Bees were covering the comb and seemed busy working. I could see a lot of the syrup in the comb and some pollen. None of it was capped.
I didn't see the queen or any evidence she was laying. Given her relatively small size, it could very well be that I overlooked her. What confused me is I saw about 6-7 queen cups. Unfortunately I didn't think to see what was in them. Some of the cups were in the middle of the frame and some were toward the bottom.
Any advice on what's going on and what I should do? Should I order a new queen or take a "wait and see" approach? Could they even make a new queen if the old queen is no longer alive?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank in advance.
I've been feeding them syrup with a jar over the opening on the inner cover in an empty super. They've been taking about 1/2 to 1 pint per day per hive. The bees seem to be doing okay and seem to have been actively foraging. I've noticed them bringing quite a bit of pollen in.
I did an inspection of one of the hives today. They were drawing the comb out nice and straight. They had drawn out about 1/3 of the frame space. Bees were covering the comb and seemed busy working. I could see a lot of the syrup in the comb and some pollen. None of it was capped.
I didn't see the queen or any evidence she was laying. Given her relatively small size, it could very well be that I overlooked her. What confused me is I saw about 6-7 queen cups. Unfortunately I didn't think to see what was in them. Some of the cups were in the middle of the frame and some were toward the bottom.
Any advice on what's going on and what I should do? Should I order a new queen or take a "wait and see" approach? Could they even make a new queen if the old queen is no longer alive?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank in advance.