[val2857]

We are new to beekeeping and trying to learn as we go. We got our bees May 15th and July 4th they swarmed. We had to 2 hive bodies in place and after they swarmed we were told to put the honey super on. We checked 7/23 and they are doing nothing in the honey super and the top hive body have plenty of honey but no capped brood or eggs or larve. Doesnt look honey bound. Lower hive body found very few capped brood and no larve or eggs. We could not locate a queen and no queen cells either. There seems to be plenty of worker bees. Any suggestions on what this hive is doing? Any help would be appreciated

 

[JOHNYOGA2]

Hi Val,
It is not odd for a first year hive to swarm, especially if you started from a nuc rather then a package; not common, but not unusual. So if the hive swarmed on 7/4 a new queen could have popped out within the next few days, giving her time to mate then get used to her new duties can sometimes take a week or two or three. You should keep a close eye on the hive, but I'm thinking that you've probably got two more weeks before you get frantic about getting a new queen from somewhere. They usually have a pretty good handle on what's going on, so if the hive is behaving normally, and you see no evidence of a laying worker, they are probably right on track.

 

[Onehorse]

The package we installed on April 12 swarmed on us around mid-June. We did a split when it started to throw afterswarms and then we queened the split. And, I thought it was too dry here, but apparently not.

 

[Konrad]

Agree, one or max two more week.
I don't know why you were told to put on honey super when allot of the work force is gone.
Did you get the swarm?..It's soooo....important to keep an eye out for swarms every day at swarm
season, I was lucky and got this one swarm which out performed the hive it came from and
now there is two deep brood boxes full, [without feeding] including one full honey super....just put the second one on.

Konrad