Buying Queens

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dickbowyer

House Bee
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Joined
May 3, 2010
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Location
W Sussex, UK
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
Some hives and a few nucs
One hive I was given has become Queenless (rapidly dwindling brood, no eggs, no QC and no Q seen) and as a novice may well be due to my ineptitude :banghead:. One of the options seems to be to buy a queen such as a Buckfast. Is this easy, who supplies, what is delivery time and cost?
 
Just use a frame of eggs from your other hive.

They will build queen cells and eventually a mated queen.

You could also make a small nuc at the same time as a back up queen, If it all goes pare shaped use the nuc to introduce a new queen.
 
As its a full colony there may be a virgin queen running around in there, if you buy and introduce a queen then they will kill her, I suggest go ring a local experienced beekeeper and with the offer of a cup of tea ask him to look just to be sure, Hivemaker on here sells queens or PM me
kev
 
Thanks for replies. looking through old posts there seems to be two schools of thought, raise a new queen from another frame of eggs (and costs you nowt) or buy in a new queen - the latter group seem to suggest that it is better to buy in as there is more guarantee of a decent egg laying queen by that route. What is the urgency to get this sorted at this stage in the season? If I try a frame of eggs from other hive and it fails, is there time to rescue the problem with a purchased queen for the hive to overwinter?
 
Virgin queens can be like quicksilver and difficult for anybody to find.

New beeks are sometimes wrong to presume queenlessness, and the insertion of a test frame is the only way to find out for sure.

Kimble Bee Supplies will do you a queen for £30 and a quick turnaround, but put it in a hive with a virgin queen and expect it to be killed pronto. Look for your dead £30 investment on the landing board.
 
and as a novice may well be due to my ineptitude :banghead:.

Try and work out if and where you have gone wrong. no point rushing out with £30 only to loose it again, and again and again etc.

One hive I was given has becomeQueenless (rapidly dwindling brood, no eggs, no QC and no Q seen)

Even if the queen was lost yesterday, there would be othersigns that she had just gone, so how long ago did you see her/signs of her?

I am sure others will jump in with other tips.
 
similar thing happened to me, went the new frame of eggs route, they had already produced a virgin queen who mated and started laying pronto! i am now starting to think that i might end up re-queening though has the hive is noticeably more jumpy and grumpy! :willy_nilly:
 
Do you have polished cells ?
If you have a virgin running around then the workers would be polishing cells ready for the first eggs.
 
You have two issues here Dickboyer.

One is do you have a virgin? Answer to that is a test frame.

2nd is time. I would suggest you buy a queen if your test frame says you are Q-

If the test frame says you are q+ then you have to find the virgin first and kill her, or gamble and wait. (time issue)

PH
 
Thanks for advice - just popped in a test frame brood/larvae/vertical eggs. How soon do I look?
 
Chris B,

That is what I might fill in if there were capped and uncapped 'swarm' queen cells......Depends on whether the form 'accommodated' colonies 'between queens'. Lots of these 'tick' sheets are designed without all the options considered.

Regards, RAB
 
How soon do I look?

About twenty minutes should do.

A day or two should be enough. I wonder if a day or two will make any odds as to the outcome, either way. Whichever route you have decided to take (re-queen from the brood cells or buying in), will it really matter?

Regards, RAB
 
Just checked test frame which had two queen cups with one which looked like it had something in the bottom so I presume a Qcell. Other frames had 2-4 empty Qcups so presume Q- now. Looking to follow PH advice and purchase Queen then introduce after taking out test frame which i might use to make up Nuc if Q introduction fails. Sound right? Any suggestions for trouble free Q introduction. With or without attendants, smoke aggressively or not, feed hive before or not????????
 
Just checked test frame which had two queen cups with one which looked like it had something in the bottom so I presume a Qcell.

Put a test frame into a queenless hive and you will get perhaps more than half a dozen queen cells sticking out like fingers. These are emergency queen cells.

Emergency queen cells are built on normal cells. Nowt to do with queen cups.
 
On the test frame there were two acorn shaped cups coming off normal cells so emergency queen cups?
 
Queenless in that context is Unmated queen. Which is a very common usage though of course not technically correct.

PH
 
8 days after test frame, no queen cells and two adjacent frames have unsealed larvae, which on one frame is quite central and looks in a circular-ish distribution but other frames the larvae are a bit more scattered so therefore not queenless but not sure if old queen or superceded queen just starting to lay. They were much less aggressive today although still not nice.....
 

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