10 sealed queen cells in new hive!

[earthsoul]

I have done regular hive inspections, I inspected last Saturday the weather stopped me from checking until yesterday, and I found 10 capped queen cells. I have searched the hive for the queen, as has my partner but we cannot locate her, there is a full brood of bees, I gave her a super to extend to and a super for growth.
A bit sad it has all gone a bit wrong

 

[Swarm]

Don't beat yourself up too much, this year's weather has been ... well let's just say a bit bad.
Though the BB looks full of bees, you can bet you've lost the queen along with a swarm. You've just to decide now how you are going to proceed. I had the same last weekend, colony grown to the point I needed to shake bees to search the frames. How do you do this when all is against you weatherwise? Horizontal rain and high winds ... I gave up and hoped all would be ok.
That's right, they were off. At least I collected them, a huge prime swarm, so that made me a bit happier.

 

[aberreef]

sounds like you've lost a swarm

I'd remove all but 2 of the QCs at this point to limit the chance of losing a cast or 2.

Another option would be to split the colony into a few nuc boxes with 2 Qcs in each. I doubt you'll get any crop from this colony this year unless you combine it with another so you may as well make the most of the situation and come out of it with another colony or 2.

 

[earthsoul]

I thought you might say that, thing is there was one uncapped queen cell (which I removed) 0n Saturday 10/06/12, and I checked them on Monday 18/06/12, the weather has been so bad I was at a bit of a shocked state that they somehow got away!

 

[susbees]

sounds like you've lost a swarm

I'd remove all but 2 of the QCs at this point to limit the chance of losing a cast or 2.

So you are saying that on Mon 18th there were ten capped QC which you left (and likely no viable brood to make any more)?

 

[earthsoul]

Yes that is what I did, I then phoned a more experienced beekeeper 'Taffy' who has been here this evening.

He has confirmed the colony is queenless, we are taking actions to rectify this.

 

[drex]

Did an AS 30 days ago on two hives. Was thinking they were queenless as no eggs, but have just read the results of test frames and neither had produced queen cells, so must be a queen somewhere.

Will be patient a while longer. The first sunny warm day in ages here.

 

[Poly Hive]

It is very unusual for a colony to be queenless if the bees have thier way.

If the test frame result is negative, (no cells produced) then they have a virgin.

Patience is the key.

Say you lose a swarm on day 8. Call that the first of June. Eight days to emergence, 9th of June. 21 days (ish may take longer) for successful mating weather and woo its near July at 30th June.

Scary stuff but reality.

Patience.

PH

 

[Baggyone]

I have learnt that patience is key to queen matings. I always seem to lose 2 or 3 a year and it seems to take ages for queens to start laying if there are any anyway.

My bees do not seem to make queen cells as readily as others and therefore my queen rearing is pretty poor. Probably the area in my beekeeping I really need to improve on. Next year I may donate a hive to try and become my cell building hive and learn to graft.

baggy

 

[susbees]

My bees do not seem to make queen cells as readily as others
baggy

Excellent

 

[susbees]

Yes that is what I did, I then phoned a more experienced beekeeper 'Taffy' who has been here this evening.

He has confirmed the colony is queenless, we are taking actions to rectify this.

Well done. Is he lending you a test frame and have you taken down the extra cells?

 

[earthsoul]

he checked over the hive, no larvae or eggs, so he removed the extra cells and is letting them requeen for themselves, they know what they are doing in all honesty!!!!
My other hive still has the queen.
The hive was very strong, so it looks like she managed to swarm but took very few bees with her, or that she died.
Since I first got the nucleus they have produced queen cells, I moved them to a hive and gave them room to expand, I thought it might be as they were settling, and I breathed (a far to early) sigh of relief when I only found one on the Saturday, I hoped they might actually be settling.....oh foolish foolish me, but I was prepared to recheck on Saturday, the rain was bad here, and on Sunday so I took my first chance on Monday and I was already to late

 

[susbees]

It's been a trying time for pretty much everyone. Missed checks due to vile weather etc. Many seem to have Q? colonies and the swarming season has been just crazy.

Fingers crossed for a trouble-free requeen