[kenargo]

Here in Washington state we still have time to have the bees raise an emergency queen (or add a queen if you can source one).

You need to figure out if they are truly queenless. If you have another hive you could take a frame with eggs and place it into the hive in question. If they are queenless they will raise an emergency cell; if they are not they will feed and cap the brood. If the population is low you can put a frame or 2 of capped brood from another hive to give the population a bump in order to give them more time to raise a queen. You have many options but you need to figure out with fair certainty that they are queenless as the options change with/without a queen.

 

[Bees In Miami]

Not trying to sound flippant, but what makes you believe they are queenless if you have not been in there? This was an established Nuc, with a queen known to them?

 

[cory brunner]

Not flippant at all. I am checking the hives every 7 days. Just a quick inspection - taking out the outermost frames and looking for brood, honey etc. I have 2 hives. One is rocking and has built up 8 out of the 10 frames. Full of capped brood and honey. A week ago other one had started to build out the foundation on one of "my" frames (not an original nuc frame), but when I checked it this week there hasn't been any more work on that frame or any of the other frames aside from the 5 original nuc frames. Additionally the hive doesn't seem to have great numbers. Compared to the other hive it is 1/2 (or less) the size. Does that make sense?

 

[cory brunner]

That makes complete sense to me. When I inspect tomorrow I will make sure there is not Queen. Will keep you posted!! THANK YOU!!

 

[Vance G]

Take a frame of open brood from your strong colony and gently brush the bees of it so you don't accidentally transfer the queen and put it in the weak hive. Do it again the next week and check the first frame and if you are queenless, you should have structures that look like peanuts. Those are queen cells and you have time to raise a queen. Just stay out for three weeks after you see the cells. That does not mean you should not check to see if the bees need another box. Bees with no brood can store a lot of honey. Adding a third frame of brood with no bees next to the cluster in the third week would be a good thing to do to to keep the colony population up. If you just take a frame of eggs and no bees you aren't impacting the other colony much at all. The queen can lay far more eggs that the bees can care for.

 

[cory brunner]

Hi Vance!
Thanks so much! That sounds like a great plan. I feel comfortable that I can do that. It's forecasted to rain tomorrow - if that's the case I will be all over it on Thursday. THANK YOU!

 

[cory brunner]

I went into the hive today and there is in fact a queen. There is larva and capped worker brood. (some empty cells in the brood pattern although I don't think it had the shotgun pattern) Just not a lot... Should I give her more time? I did add a brood frame from the other hive. Is it possible that the nuc I got had just replaced an old Queen with her? I found a plastic cap covered in wax on one of the frames. Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks,
Cory

That makes complete sense to me. When I inspect tomorrow I will make sure there is not Queen. Will keep you posted!! THANK YOU!!

 

[Michael Bush]

Sometimes they really are queenless, but the majority of the time that you think they are, they are not. They usually succeed at raising a new queen when one is lost or failing and usually you find them when she is just about to mate and start laying and you assume they are queenless. A frame of brood is the cheapest, simplest and best intervention as it will not interfere but will provide more information (if they start a queen cell, then they were queenless) while postponing issues with laying workers.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beespanacea.htm