Are these queens duds

CB008 · Mar 5, 2013

Knowing that I have sufficient experience to get in and out in under 2 minutes, and with the temperatures in the South so warm today, I decided to follow a recent post and remove 1 frame, push the others and pull out a frame or 2 in seconds to have a quick check.; I have 4 colonies and 1 NUC all with 2012 summer queens. What I found surprised me; 2 colonies and the NUC all had very, very small patches of brood – so far so good. The 2 other colonies had no brood and no eggs – none even from laying workers nor was there any sign of drone brood despite seeing one of the queens. I would appreciate opinions as to what I should read from this. I am unsure whether, after such a prolonged cold spell, the queens have only just come into lay and the 2 others may yet start or whether 2 are in fact duds.

beeno · Mar 5, 2013

CB008 said:
Knowing that I have sufficient experience to get in and out in under 2 minutes, and with the temperatures in the South so warm today, I decided to follow a recent post and remove 1 frame, push the others and pull out a frame or 2 in seconds to have a quick check.; I have 4 colonies and 1 NUC all with 2012 summer queens. What I found surprised me; 2 colonies and the NUC all had very, very small patches of brood – so far so good. The 2 other colonies had no brood and no eggs – none even from laying workers nor was there any sign of drone brood despite seeing one of the queens. I would appreciate opinions as to what I should read from this. I am unsure whether, after such a prolonged cold spell, the queens have only just come into lay and the 2 others may yet start or whether 2 are in fact duds.

Hi CB008,
It is too early to read anything into this IMO. Sounds all good. At least that was what I concluded from two quickie inspections myself today. One I looked at because they had very little stores last time, but eggs. Now it had sealed brood on two frames and no stores at all - honey or pollen. So, used it all up to feed the brood I must conclude. Added another slab of fondant as I did not want them to run out. They were very busy foraging though. The other colony had not done much lately and was not out at all yday. Now there I saw the Queen, but BIAS negative some capped stores but on different frames to last time, but all the pollen stores gone. Lots of orientation flights today on this one so perhaps they have hatch some brood and are now having to wait to catch up with the pollen stores being gathered! Put another slab of fondant on this one too as they had more or less finished the old one. Heyho, still a waiting game.

Black Comb · Mar 5, 2013

Did the same today and I have 2 like this. Very quick look but in one I saw the queen. All we can do is wait and see if they start to lay.
I've never looked in this early before (previously always last week in March) so perhaps it's usual.
One colony has a decent amount of bees but the other is minimal and I don't expect it to last.

JohnyP · Mar 5, 2013

Exactly the same with me. Speed-inspected 4 hives. 3 had small patches of sealed brood (probably laid during from that warmish period a couple of weeks ago) 2 had eggs. However, 1 hive had no eggs or brood, low or stores but quite a lot of bees. I closed up quickly and decided to wait a couple more weeks. The end of March looks warmer.

MuswellMetro · Mar 5, 2013

? any polished cells or pollen going in

i prefer to leave them and just observe from the outside until the equinox, i have one with too little pollen going in but others appears fine

I would have expected eggs at least though on a quicky, i expect easily to miss even day old brood

CB008 · Mar 5, 2013

MuswellMetro said:
? any polished cells or pollen going in

i prefer to leave them and just observe from the outside until the equinox, i have one with too little pollen going in but others appears fine

I would have expected eggs at least though on a quicky, i expect easily to miss even day old brood

A very small amount of pollen compared to others. The inspection was too quick to look for polished cells