I have a hive that I have suspected for more than a month of being laying worker or having a failing queen. I have not seen the queen since last winter but becasue it has not been warm, I have not yet done a thorough inspection.
Upon advice I recieved from the forum, I have been adding a frame of capped brood every week from another queen-right hive I have, and I have done this for three weeks, the last time being on March 6th (12 days ago).
I did a quick inspection today and discovered 3 things:
A/ The new foundationless frame I inserted in the middle of the brood nest is being drawn out as drone comb.
B/ The only open brood I could find in the hive was drone larvae in this new central drone comb (the only other available comb was all drawn worker comb except for another frame of empty drone comb on the edge of the brood nest).
C/ On the last frame of capped brood I moved from the queenright hive to this hive 12 days ago, there is now a beautiful capped queen cell near the outer edge of the frame (where there were likely to be eggs or several day old larvae 12 days ago when the frame was transferred into this hive).
The presence of only drone larvae more or less confirms either laying workers or a failing queen, right?
The fact that a queen cell has been formed more or less confirms that the three weeks of transferring open brood has succeeded to get the hive to realize that they have no queen and to create a queen cell, correct?
So what should I do? Is there a risk that laying workers or the failing queen could kill the virgin queen after she emerges, or can I be pretty confident that since this queen cell was formed by the hive and not introduced, that she will be accepted whe she emerges and make the hive queen-right after mating?
The last time I did a quick inspection on this hive was on March 13th (5 days ago) at which time there was no visible queen cell, so doing the math, the virgin queen is likely to emerge on March 20th to March 22nd. If ti is unwise to leave the queen cell to emerge in a hive with laying workers or a failing queen, I need to decide very quickly so that I can remove her tomorrow before she might emerge.
Is this laying worker hive on the way to being salvaged by having created a queen cell on its own, or should I salvage the queen cell into a nuc, shake out the laying worker hive (or failing queen hive), and start afresh?
Any help from those with experience in this situation would be greatly appreciated.
-fafrd
Upon advice I recieved from the forum, I have been adding a frame of capped brood every week from another queen-right hive I have, and I have done this for three weeks, the last time being on March 6th (12 days ago).
I did a quick inspection today and discovered 3 things:
A/ The new foundationless frame I inserted in the middle of the brood nest is being drawn out as drone comb.
B/ The only open brood I could find in the hive was drone larvae in this new central drone comb (the only other available comb was all drawn worker comb except for another frame of empty drone comb on the edge of the brood nest).
C/ On the last frame of capped brood I moved from the queenright hive to this hive 12 days ago, there is now a beautiful capped queen cell near the outer edge of the frame (where there were likely to be eggs or several day old larvae 12 days ago when the frame was transferred into this hive).
The presence of only drone larvae more or less confirms either laying workers or a failing queen, right?
The fact that a queen cell has been formed more or less confirms that the three weeks of transferring open brood has succeeded to get the hive to realize that they have no queen and to create a queen cell, correct?
So what should I do? Is there a risk that laying workers or the failing queen could kill the virgin queen after she emerges, or can I be pretty confident that since this queen cell was formed by the hive and not introduced, that she will be accepted whe she emerges and make the hive queen-right after mating?
The last time I did a quick inspection on this hive was on March 13th (5 days ago) at which time there was no visible queen cell, so doing the math, the virgin queen is likely to emerge on March 20th to March 22nd. If ti is unwise to leave the queen cell to emerge in a hive with laying workers or a failing queen, I need to decide very quickly so that I can remove her tomorrow before she might emerge.
Is this laying worker hive on the way to being salvaged by having created a queen cell on its own, or should I salvage the queen cell into a nuc, shake out the laying worker hive (or failing queen hive), and start afresh?
Any help from those with experience in this situation would be greatly appreciated.
-fafrd