[Polarbee]

When I was pulling my supers last September I was positive I lost the queen after she had gotten in the honey super and then into the bed of my pickup truck where she scurried away.

1. Hive was testy for the next couple of times I opened it.
2. Found no brood and hive was getting honey bound two and four weeks later.
3. I cound find no sign of a queen but the hive was extremely well populated
4. I found queen cells days after I pulled the supers.

We were almost to the 50's so I cracked the top on my hives just to check for signs of life. I already knew I had one deadout but wanted to check the others.

All my hives were going well, even the one I thought had lost the queen.

Can a hive make it six months without a queen?

I thought this hive was a goner and didn't even feed them last fall. Now I am wondering if they are just hanging on or actually are still a viable hive.

I am wondering if I got lucky and one of the girls got knocked up even though it was very late in the season. Its still to cold to get into the hive so I haven't been able to check for brood.

Jay

 

[BeeManiac]

You have a queen.

 

[Wolfer]

My personal cutoff for raising queens has always been around the first of August. Last year I had two queens born in Sept. I didn't have much hope but seems their doing fine.

I still had drones flying so I wasn't worried about mating. They didn't have much time to raise their winter brood. Evidently they had enough though.

 

[merince]

I think your hive replaced the queen, so now you have one.

 

[Wilcoma]

I had the same experience. Found Queen cells everywhere when I did an inspection on 8/24. Inspected again on 9/17. Saw the Queen but there was no capped brood. I didn't give the hive a ghost of a chance of making it through the winter, but it came though and is doing well. I observed a good orientation flight today so the Queen must have taken off in the fall and raised enough winter bees for the hive to survive and start the sping buildup.