This has been my observation as well. Upon opening I can almost always tell there is a queen problem. When queenless the bees act very skittish and tend to be somewhat more defensive although not at all like a hot hive. The bees tend to jump out and bump the hands, hive tool or whatever is pulling frames. The longer they are queenless the worse this seems to get. I've not noticed that this lets up with capped queen cells in the hive and only lessens a bit with a virgin. With a lying queen it seems like it's back to normal about the same day she starts laying. One thing that brought this up was a really strong hive I had with 2 supers on it started sounding loud. It had tons of bees in and out so I didn't get concerned. About a week later this hive got louder and it was just sitting there sounding like a large queenless swarm. I decided to look because I've had hives that were producing large amounts of honey go queenless unexpectedly and within two weeks had some honey frames with Beetle slime. I'm not going to let this happen again. I don't like messing with producing hives other than adding and/or removing supers but if I think a hive got queenless then I'm looking. It doesn't take long during a good flow before a queenless hive gets depopulated enough to not be able to cover the frames and the Beatles get a grip.I notice a different sound to a colony when I open it and suspect queenlessness because of it, but not from outside of the hive.
Look up "Apidictor" on the forum search tool. This was an old electronic gadget that did a crude spectrum analysis on hive buzz. The claim was that sound could tell you if a hive were planning to swarm up to 20 days before it happened.Do queenless hives sound so much different than a queen right hive? I've had many years of experience with both but just recently decided to look into how reliable the sound emitted from a queenless hive can be used to make this determination? Is it so easy that just walking by a queenless hive can let one know the state of the Queen?
Thanks, you remind me that Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk from Montana ahd an instrument that can analyse a number of conditions by the way a colony sounds. It has a michrophone on a wand and a handheld device w/ a screen on it. $800.00 if you can get one.Look up "Apidictor" on the forum search tool. This was an old electronic gadget that did a crude spectrum analysis on hive buzz. The claim was that sound could tell you if a hive were planning to swarm up to 20 days before it happened.
Very true. Thanks for pointing this out. These were things I completely overlooked.No idea about the micraphone thingy. But while a queen less hive will often have a roar when opened just because it's quiet doesn't mean its completely queen right.
Hives with drone layers, failed queens etc will often be calm and quiet.
It seems like the most reliable indicator (absent visual inspection) would be chemical detection of Happy Queen Pheromones, since these are what actually regulate behavior in the hive. I'd rather know about pheromone levels than try to guess about a root caused based on an indirect symptom like noise.Sound for the state of a queen in a hive = not advisable.
