Any ideas?

[Tindog]

I have been keeping bees for about five years in total so consider myself as a novice still.
As the result of domestic circumstances I had to give up beekeeping for about eighteen months and started up again from scratch this spring.
I was fortunate to be given a split which contained a good viable queen and about four frames of brood and eggs with an ample supply of food. For whatever reason, (my beekeeping buddy who has 20+ experience, thinks the bees were poisoned but we are not sure) I lost the queen and about half of the bees. Not a good start, that was in May this year.
Since then, I have introduced frames of brood and eggs three times now from a donor hive and the bees have still not drawn and emergency cells. Any idea why?
There is definitely no queen there but the bees still seem calm. No sign of eggs so no laying worker either. Bizarre.
My plan is to try once more with a frame of eggs and brood and if I fail again to either buy a queen in or unite with a nuc that I have on order which should arrive in July.
Comments would be appreciated.
Thank you.

 

[B+.]

I was fortunate to be given a split which contained a good viable queen and about four frames of brood and eggs with an ample supply of food. For whatever reason, (my beekeeping buddy who has 20+ experience, thinks the bees were poisoned but we are not sure) I lost the queen and about half of the bees. Not a good start, that was in May this year.
Since then, I have introduced frames of brood and eggs three times now from a donor hive and the bees have still not drawn and emergency cells. Any idea why?
There is definitely no queen there but the bees still seem calm. No sign of eggs so no laying worker either. Bizarre.

As I read through what you had written, I was thinking that there may be some remnant of the poison in the hive or in the wax of the comb. However, I think it is more likely that you just have insufficient nurse bees to raise queen cells. Even this is unsure though because they will usually raise cells, even if they are only producing runt queens. What do they do with the frames of eggs you give them? Do they eat them or raise them as workers? If you have the means to do it, I would be inclined to shake them all out and giive them several frames of brood, then a week or so later, give them a frame with young larvae. Failing that, I would think of getting a mated queen. The "summer" is moving on and they need to build up for winter

 

[Anduril]

Do you have any shiny bees in there? It could be CBPV, the behaviour looks like poisoning. http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageid=275&video=03

 

[B+.]

Do you have any shiny bees in there? It could be CBPV, the behaviour looks like poisoning. http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageid=275&video=03

Good point. I trusted the poisoning diagnosis because I would expect an experienced mentor to spot it

 

[Tindog]

Thanks for your reply.
No shiny bees, they are also still active bringing in pollen and nectar.
They are sealing the eggs as normal and raising the brood as workers.

 

[snelgrove]

Sure they didn't swarm and the swarm is under the floor, if you have an open mesh floor. This happened to me last year, it keep the hive queen right.

 

[B+.]

They are sealing the eggs as normal and raising the brood as workers.

It looks like they have a queen...perhaps still a virgin...but they think they are queenright

 

[Eyeman]

bees were poisoned but we are not sure) I lost the queen and about half of the bees. Not a good start, that was in May this year.

How did you know you lost the queen?
I had a similar situation where the queen was injured and was walking or hobbling over the OMF and couldn't get onto the frames. So no new brood but a Q+ hive and no QC's on a test frame.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I have been keeping bees for about five years in total so consider myself as a novice still.
As the result of domestic circumstances I had to give up beekeeping for about eighteen months and started up again from scratch this spring.
I was fortunate to be given a split which contained a good viable queen and about four frames of brood and eggs with an ample supply of food. For whatever reason, (my beekeeping buddy who has 20+ experience, thinks the bees were poisoned but we are not sure) I lost the queen and about half of the bees. Not a good start, that was in May this year.
Since then, I have introduced frames of brood and eggs three times now from a donor hive and the bees have still not drawn and emergency cells. Any idea why?
There is definitely no queen there but the bees still seem calm. No sign of eggs so no laying worker either. Bizarre.
My plan is to try once more with a frame of eggs and brood and if I fail again to either buy a queen in or unite with a nuc that I have on order which should arrive in July.
Comments would be appreciated.
Thank you.

We had a hive in our training apiary a couple of years ago which was failing to produce eggs. Four weeks of test frames had no result. Eventually a reclusive dud queen was found, squashed and the next test frame resulted in cells being drawn.
I'd reserve judgement on the definitely no queen diagnosis

 

[Tindog]

There is definitely no queen, she was well marked and saw her dead on the bottom of the mesh floor with a mass of other dead bees which I emptied out. It's a mystery to me but thanks for the replies.