A Quandry

[Beedogg]

I have a colony which I Demaree'd about a month ago. So far so good in terms of inspecting, swapping brood from bottom to top and empty frames from top to bottom. Lots of bees and lots of stores. All the signs of a booming colony as far as my untutored eye can tell.

However on the last couple of inspections I haven't seen the colony's queen (marked). I'm normally pretty good at spotting her. The last time I did see her was 11 days ago.

Today I inspected again, determined to find the queen. Again I couldn't find her. What I found was:

1. Lots of bees (the colony is rammed and I'm doubtful that she's departed with a swarm - there seem to be too many bees)
2. Some brood in the lower BB but the youngest that I can see appears to be around 3 days old. I could see no brand-new larvae.
3. No eggs that I could see. I confess that I find them really quite difficult to see, but I looked closely at the frames today and could find none.
4. Bees a little more feisty than previously.

So I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the queen has 'gone' and, judging from the age of the youngest larvae, it would seem that she disappeared around 6 days ago (which, incidentally, coincides with an inspection when I did see BIAS including eggs). I'm beginning to wonder if I might have squished her inadvertently, perhaps while swapping frames around, or maybe she just flew off a frame without me noticing...

However, there were no QCs there today although there were a few QCs (3-4) which I interpreted as Swarm Cells 2 days ago and took down.

So, what do to?

If the queen has gone I clearly need to re-queen the colony.
I don't have 'a spare' queen but I did have two frames of QCs which I'd nuc'd about a week ago, hoping to raise a queen for a neighbour who is starting out. So, rightly or wrongly, today I took one of those frames from the nuc and put it into the bottom BB. It has 3 sealed QCs which, if I'm right, are due to emerge in a couple of days.

My logic is that:

1. If the original queen is no more then I presume that the first new queen out will kill the others, mate and then that colony will be back in business. Correct?
2. If the original queen is still in the colony (but in hiding) then I guess that the bees will take down the unnecessary QCs? Or will the emergence of the first new queen trigger a swarm? I'm slightly in the dark here.

Could I/should I have done anything different (apart from be more careful in future)?

Grateful for views?

 

[Erichalfbee]

If the original queen is no longer there it's quite likely that the bees, being a big colony will swarm with the first virgin and maybe again with subsequent ones

Lots of bees (the colony is rammed and I'm doubtful that she's departed with a swarm - there seem to be too many bees)

It sounds as if she has, especially as you found swarm cells
The colony won't seem smaller, How many bees do you think have emerged in those six days?

What should you have done? What I would have done is treated the colony like any other where the queen has swarmed. Reduce to one QC ) maybe nuc another as insurance

 

[Beedogg]

So what would be the best thing to do now? The colony would seem to be Q- and, until the introduction of the QCs I gave it today, was also QC-less. Would I be best going back in tomorrow and reducing the number of QCs I gave them to one?

 

[Wilco]

So what would be the best thing to do now? The colony would seem to be Q- and, until the introduction of the QCs I gave it today, was also QC-less. Would I be best going back in tomorrow and reducing the number of QCs I gave them to one?

Yes.

 

[Swarm]

Check the top box first to make sure you didn't move her up by mistake.