[RD35]

Installed two packages into new hives on 05-02. Inspection thereafter once per week has indicated there is no queen in our west hive. Funny thing is, we were able to see some larvae in the brood and the brood was all being capped. This led us to believe the queen was just real good at hiding. Well, last weeks inspection revealed the brood was hatching but no new eggs were getting laid in the brood cells. Also, there was a huge queen cell in the center of one of the middle frames and bees were going in and out of that cell. So...today we pulled the top off this hive. As I pulled the frames I saw that all of the brood was opened up with no eggs or larvae in them. The queen cell was gone...completely gone! When I pulled frame number 8...There she was...A queen bee..with no green dot on her back like the original.

Question #1
Is it okay that this freshly hatched brand new queen has not laid any eggs yet?

Question #2
Is there anything special we should be doing for this hive now? Should we be feeding them?

Thanks!

 

[Saltybee]

#1 Yes. http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm

#2 No. Not necessary and probably more of a robbing danger than benefit.

 

[Beregondo]

You did indeed have queen at the beginning, as witnessed by the eggs/larvae she produced.

She died, either by supercedure, being "rolled" when one comb rubbed against another while being lifted ffrom the brood box by a beekeeper, or some other cause.

The new queen took about 3 weeks to emerge after the hive began raising her after the original queen's death.

It will take her a few days to couple weeks to get mated and start laying, depending on conditions.

So the fact that all pof the brood th original queen laid has already emerged, and the new queen isn't laing yet isn't a problem.

In fact, it's just what we'd expect from a healthy hive in this situation.

 

[JRG13]

I wouldn't disturb them for two weeks and check for new brood then, should be good to go.

 

[RD35]

Thanks all for your replies! Gonna wait two weeks and check on them to see if they need more room. Other hive will likely get its second story next week!

 

[RD35]

Checked on our two hives (east hive and west hive) yesterday. The west hive that had lost its queen and then hatched a new queen is working away. We pulled the frames and could not find the new queen. We did note that there were several large (4" diamter) sections of capped brood and at least that same area of open brood with visible larva at different stages of growth. However, we also saw a lot of empty open brood. The bees seemed very busy and foragers were coming and going at a low but steady volume. We are hoping the queen just eluded our eyes. This deep box (package installed into brand new 10-frame box on May 02, 2014) had foundation on both sides of 6 frames and on one side of 2 frames. Outer two frames were still clean, but had bees all over them. Our other hive (east hive) had foundation built on 8 frames complete and the outer two frames had foundation at about 30 % complete one side. We decided to go ahead and add the second deep box to that hive. Its traffic pattern seemed to be at least twice that of the west hive and it was obvious it had more bees in it. That west hive is suffering terribly due to low population. If I had to guess, I would estimate it only has around 6-7K bees in it now. The east hive looks as if it may be up to 12K+ already. (purely guessing)
So, should we feed the west hive to help it out. Or, should we just leave it alone and let it recover naturally!

 

[jjohnsind]

Just curious (as I'm in the same general vicinity as you), how were your packages around the first week of June? I debated on whether to get packages early May or wait for nucs available in early June. I heard it would be a wash but I decided to go with the nuc. Currently, it seems I have more bees (about a third more), but they have only got about an inch drawn on the 6th frame, and nothing added to the fifth frame that was fully drawn when I got them. They don't seem to go through my feeding so I guess there's enough nectar out there for them. Wondering how your best hive is doing currently compared to this as it would help my decision for next year (on which to order for my second hive). Thanks.

 

[RD35]

Packages installed May 02. First week of June, our east hive (the best of the two) had constructed foundation on 6 frames (frames 3 thru 8) mostly and was just beginning work in the insides of frames 2 and 9. The upper corners of the outer frames were honey cells and the rest were brood. We fed 1:1 sugar syrup the first three weeks. The last feeding we noticed a marked decrease in consumption. The were previously devouring 1 gallon in about 5 days. The 3rd week in May they only drank about 3 qts in 7 days. So we pulled the feeders off.

 

[jjohnsind]

Thanks. Sounds like you did better with the packages than I with the nuc. We also had a pretty cold & wet May. I'll probably try packages next year (sounds like more fun anyway).