[beekeeper1756]

I have discovered that one of my cutouts, the biggest hive I have, has a queen and she is a laying machine. Frames covered in eggs and larva. Lots and lots of eggs.

My last cutout, missed the queen, so I took a frame of eggs from the big hive, brushed off the bees to make sure I didn't transfer the queen, and put the frame of eggs into the queenless hive.

I'm going to let the bees make their own queen.

 

[Hambone]

Sounds like a plan to me. Check back in 4 days and see if you see queen cells started on that frame.

 

[wdcrkapry205]

Sounds like a plan to me. Check back in 4 days and see if you see queen cells started on that frame.

Beware:
Depending on how long they've been queenless, checking them in 4 days could be painful.... The longer they go the meaner they get.

 

[Batman]

Had and egg laying worker going at my house. I opened one of my hives and found 5 or 6 swarm cells in it. I took 2 and put them in the ELW hive, I know the queen cell should have hatched on between Fri and Sat last week, I can't wait to go looking for her on Friday. That's the good, the bad is I have a cut out that didn't go as planned, looks like I didn't get the queen, least if I did, I have not found her yet. Let me ask you this....would you give them a frame of brood or just break down and buy one for $25 from the local store if it were you?

 

[rkereid]

If there are eggs in the brood from the cutout, they should make their own queen. I have a colony doing that now. I didn't get the queen and now they have three capped queen cells.

 

[beedeetee]

Beware:
Depending on how long they've been queenless, checking them in 4 days could be painful.... The longer they go the meaner they get.

I hear that a lot but it hasn't been my experience. I might notice them being testy for a few days but later they become lethargic and mopey (official beekeeping term). They don't seem to have the same energy after they decide that they are hopelessly queenless.

I don't know why beekeepers would have such different experience with this.

 

[jbford]

I have not bought a queen in years. No need at all unless you are in Africanized area. Make a few splits every year (from the swarm-happy hives) and then recombine before fall and destroy the old queens to stay at our 5 hives.

 

[Batman]

They have been queenless for a week today. There was no brood to extract, the swarm had only been in the wall a couple of days...I know I can steal a frame from another hive, just thought it might be nice to give them a jumpstart by having a queen that was ready to lay eggs ASAP, prob put the hive about 3 weeks ahead of where they would be if they raised their own. Plus the kids would prob enjoy seeing the queen in the cage.

Craig

 

[beekeeper1756]

I checked the frame and sure enough, they are drawing out at least two different queen cells.