Busy Hive but hardly any Larvae seen

[Luka22]

I have a quick question about one of the hives, where I am not sure if I have a problem or not.

The Hive swarmed (we had 5 QC, so probably multiple times), but managed to keep lots of bees for the whole time. The last capped QC was seen on the 07-07, which was than open when we checked on the 15-07, few days later a small Queen was spotted. We assumed they were queenless for a bit. I checked the Hive yesterday, they have lots of Bees, 1 Full Super and some bees in the second Super starting to work in there. So all fine.

The Brood Box got capped Brood, Pollen and Honey, but I had to go through the Box twice to finally see some Larvae. I would guess it was only about 10 maybe a few more and just on 1 Frame all next to each other. I could not see the Queen, but found lots and lots of Drones instead, which is the only Hive with Drones. They still have about 8 Frames left in BB to use, so it can't be a lack of Space. Is it possible that she did not mate? But since there is capped Brood, if I calculate correct, that should be from her or not?

I mean they have lots of Bees, lots of Food, lots of Space, but only 10 Larvae and lots of Drones... What could be wrong in there?

 

[Tom Bick]

It reads a bit confusing to me Luka.

You say your hive swarmed approx 4 weeks ago but yet you have capped Brood. This may be chilled but then you say you have plenty of bees and they are happy to be working on the 2nd super. Did you see the swarm? Have you checked the super for a queen?

You refer to 8 frames in the BB for the bees to use? or is this drawn frames without eggs and brood and the others are the sealed brood and the few open brood you have found.

Your hive may have swarmed but I wonder if you have a damaged queen in the hive limping on and you have seen emergency QC’s.

If you spotted a virgin on and around the 15 June then she may just be coming into lay now if not already.

 

[Luka22]

Hi Tom,
It is very confusing for us as well, since we only started this year with beekeeping.

Ok, lets look back. In April we bought 2 Colonies. End of May we discovered 5 Queen Cups in that Hive, but left it. On the 13.06 we moved 1 Queen Cell into a third Hive, so we did a split (all went fine) Just shortly after all that we had swarming from both them Hives. We ended up with 8 Hives, but realised that our original marked queen got lost, so we must have even missed one swarm.

So, yes, we made a lot of mistakes concerning swarm control, not to say it went out of control completly.
26-05 5 Queen Cups seen
13-06 Moved 1 Queen Cell into another Hive
25-06 Queen and Brood seen, open Queen Cell
07-07 Queen not seen, 1 Capped Queen Cell and about 4 Frames old Brood, removed 1 additional capped Queen cell
15-07 Queen not seen, but Queen Cell was open
17-07 very small Queen seen, no other change
04-08 Queen not seen, 3-4 Frames with capped Brood, Pollen and Honey, but only 1 Frame with about 10 Larvae. Lots of Drones on the Frames, lots of Bees in total.

I can not remember how the other Brood Frames looked, I think a few were drawn but its old stuff, not new. Does this gives a better picture?