Bee puzzle - eggs but no queen

[SireeDubs]

You are right that you have some worker brood in there but there is a very poor brood pattern there with drone brood popping up in the middle of worker brood - if you see something like this in the future you will know that there is a problem in the hive. PArt of the problem in this instance appears to be a poorly mated queen as MasterBK states. Hopefully disease isn't playing a part also.
There is nectar (or syrup?) appearing in a lot of the empty cells which might be an indication that they are tight on space. Have you been feeding this colony?

Thanks. No, not feeding at all. They went mad storing on the brood frames while waiting for the queen to lay. There's plenty of room for laying I think. There's some signs of chalk and sac brood, though minimal, I think the colony is sadly a write off...

Thought about shaking them out and changing the frames, but what's to say the ropey queen doesn't find her way back?! Meanwhile, the little nuc is building nicely and my other colony is just about to get their 3rd super! It's not all bad.

Really appreciate people taking the time to help. Thanks so much.

 

[SireeDubs]

Sorry, forgot to add that I've searched for the queen ad nauseum. She absolutely won't be found (had 5 seperate people looking, including some with massively more experience than me!).

 

[Tomo]

I would walk at least 200ft away, dump all the bees onto the ground, brush out every single bee from the box, (laying workers don't fly, and if they did manage to get back the won't be let in) place a QE between base and BB. Sort out the frames, give it a couple of hours, then check beneath the QE to see if you can spot a Queen. Squish. Unite with spare Q. Done. I did this a few weeks ago with laying workers. Worked a treat. I have a forest at the back of my apiary so more obstacles for the laying workers to get over.

 

[masterBK]

Tomo : Laying workers do fly and some even go foraging when they are not laying. A few yards away is all you need if you go down the dumping them out route

SireeDubs: Did you try shaking them all out onto a board in front of hive (bit like the old fashioned method of hiving a swarm) with excluder between floor and brood chamber ?

 

[SireeDubs]

Tomo : Laying workers do fly and some even go foraging when they are not laying. A few yards away is all you need if you go down the dumping them out route

SireeDubs: Did you try shaking them all out onto a board in front of hive (bit like the old fashioned method of hiving a swarm) with excluder between floor and brood chamber ?

RAB kindly suggested a shake out, frame by frame. I did this, but to no avail (even with three pairs of eyes - one of which was v experienced), we failed to see her. Likewise, no success after splitting up the frames. Unfortunately, the qx wouldn't help on this occasion I felt, as I've seen eggs up at the top of super frames, above a qx. Not many, but 1-2 days old, laid as recently as early this week.

It's certainly a stumper, but the colony are foraging really well and have almost filled a super this week. Maybe I'll leave them to it.

So do I risk it and try to combine with little nuc with nice queen laying perfect pattern, or leave them to die out naturally? My head says the former.

Mmmm.

 

[SireeDubs]

Update....

FOUND HER, FOUND HER...

Conscious of the rubbish weather coming in, have had a final look for the queen in my problem colony this morning. Think I've got her! No bigger than the largest workers, but different colouring and distinctly 'queenly'. Very, very speedy and hiding in middle of super among lots of comparable sized workers.

So now have replaced old brood frames, but left end frames with plenty of stores for them. Have united with nuc now, which has been building like mad - now four frames of brood and other two already drawn out. Queen laying really well and looks 4 times the size of the one I've despatched.

Fingers crossed. However, only newspaper I can find (for uniting) is the Guardian. Do you think they'll mind?

Thanks so much for all the suggestions and advice. Fingers crossed now for successful uniting...

 

[Norton Caff]

A really interesting thread. Thanks