Abandoned QC?

[Beedogg]

Here's an odd one. I did a split 4 weeks ago, moving a frame with 4 charged QCs from a hive and into a nuc together with with bees and stores. 5 days later three of them were sealed in the nuc. All looked well.

I went back in yesterday (22 days after finding the QCs sealed) to find no queen or any sign of laying. What I did find were two rather lonely looking sealed QCs. Obviously if these were part of the clutch of 3 then they aren't going to emerge now (I actually can't remember which frame the 3 were on). I opened one up out of curiosity and found a small-ish looking queen larva in there which looked to me to be dead.

What might have happened?

 

[Antipodes]

Here's an odd one. I did a split 4 weeks ago, moving a frame with 4 charged QCs from a hive and into a nuc together with with bees and stores. 5 days later three of them were sealed in the nuc. All looked well.

I went back in yesterday (22 days after finding the QCs sealed) to find no queen or any sign of laying. What I did find were two rather lonely looking sealed QCs. Obviously if these were part of the clutch of 3 then they aren't going to emerge now (I actually can't remember which frame the 3 were on). I opened one up out of curiosity and found a small-ish looking queen larva in there which looked to me to be dead.

What might have happened?

Were there a good number of bees to look after them and in a cosy box?

 

[steve1958]

A few ideas spring to mind.
The first queen may have hatched and killed the larvae in the other two queen cells.
If they are still Queenless then she may have failed to return from her mating flight.
Or you may have a small unmated Queen in the hive.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I went back in yesterday (22 days after finding the QCs sealed)

so take away another week for the first queen to emerge leaves a fortnight in which you expect a queen to harden her wings, fly on a few mating flights then settle down and start laying.
I would expect another two weeks before even thinking of checking.

 

[Beedogg]

OK thanks. So would I be right in saying that one should leave 4 week from emergence before being concerned at any absence of eggs/brood? Maybe I'm jumping the gun.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I’ve waited six weeks and things have been ok but in the other hand I’ve had laying workers earlier. Are there polished cells?

 

[Beedogg]

Not that I can be sure of. But in another nuc (where I also can't find a recently hatched queen) it looks to me as if the cells in the centre of what will be the brood nest are definitely being prepared. So I'm reasonable confident that there may be a young queen in that one.

Bearing in mind the advice here I'll leave them both for another couple of weeks and look again.

 

[Eyeman]

Just pop a test frame in of eggs/larvae providing you have another hive. Never does any harm & May stop you worrying. Most of my test frames suggest Q+, if Q- then I pop in one of my local queens, job done.

 

[Do224]

OK thanks. So would I be right in saying that one should leave 4 week from emergence before being concerned at any absence of eggs/brood? Maybe I'm jumping the gun.

I had a queen emerge about 10th May, laying by 23rd May and loads of charged swarm cells on 1st June. So I wouldn’t wait 4 weeks before looking in…but equally I wouldn’t be worried if it took 4 weeks before their were eggs

 

[Beedogg]

Went in yesterday and found a frame of eggs and a very small new Queen. Yay.

Patience, dear boy, patience...