3rd year queen not laying - opinions

[UWbees]

Hi,

I had a colony headed by a 3rd year queen.
She has not layed at all for over 4 weeks. Her offspring have made no
attempts to replace her. Thing is, i would like her to fire out a few more
fertilised eggs so i can keep her genetics going.

I have removed her to a polynuc with a few frames of bees, stores etc -
in the vain hope she might oblige. She moves about the comb ok.

If she had run low on eggs i would expect to see a spate of drone laying
before her demise. If she was nosemetic, why would it manifest mid april
and not over winter ?

Any ideas gladly recieved.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

i would like her to fire out a few more
fertilised eggs so i can keep her genetics going.

Genetics not that good if she's run out of steam in less than three years

If she had run low on eggs i would expect to see a spate of drone laying
before her demise.

If she has run out of eggs she won't be laying anything? if she has run out of sperm then yes, you may get drone laying.
My opinion would be cut your losses and re-queen

 

[enrico]

I would say just be patient, give her a break, she is just having a rest. She would have started again in her own good time, you slavedriver!
E

 

[Teemore]

There is a possibility that the colony is/was in the process of superceeding the old queen and were starting to feed the old queen less in preparation for the new queen to start laying. I had a colony where I was beginning to think the supercedure had failed as whilst the old, clipped queen was running about the hive, she had stopped laying. I removed her and dropped in a frame with a QC from another stock and when I checked back a few days later, the QC was torn down and eggs were present in the hive - that was only the third time I have looked in that hive this year as I did not wish to unduly disturb the supercedure process.....

 

[UWbees]

Cheers for the input folks.

Have already combined her colony with a newly mated queen.

Maybe worth putting a queen cell in with her and see if she can muster a few more
for the road ? Nothing to lose i guess apart from my patience, again !