[umchuck]

Was working outside today just behind my hives when I noticed a small cluster prob 20 to 25 young bees on the ground under one of the hives, when I went and started moving bees I saw one of my queens on the ground under this hive, funny thing the bees were from the hive she was under, its my only colony of Italians I knew which hive she cam from, its a nuc with 6 frames of bees, larva, capped brood, honey and pollen, I had noticed last week that the bees were not drawing comb for her to lay but were storing nectar and pollen there was one side of a drawn frame but had no eggs, she was just walking around, was thinking about pinching her and adding the nuc to another colony but it might not be her fault that she's not laying, how about some thoughts guy and gals, and thank you in advance for any and all thoughts.

 

[drlonzo]

This may sound strange but i've seen sort of the same thing from one of my hives just this week. Only real diff was that my queen was just out for a walk apparently. No other bees with her, walking around on the top cover of the hive. And the inside was sort of what you report with the honey/nectar stored with low brood. So i picked up the queen, added her directly to a hopelessly queenless split i had made the prior day, they accepted her with open arms, and the hive is working on some emergency cells. I'm going to leave her in the NUC to see what she does, and harvest a few of her young doughter queens to head up a few other nuc's..

 

[Michael Bush]

I have found a marked laying queen on the cover, out for a stroll before, put her back in and she was still there months later... I've also found a queen being balled and so I pulled her out and caged her and recognized her as the marked laying queen from the hive next door. Why wander next door?

 

[Beeonefarms]

And thats how its done........