can apparantly q- hives produce queen cells

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John M

New Bee
Joined
Jun 12, 2011
Messages
76
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Location
East Devon
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
4
I know only fertilised eggs can produce queens but a swarm I hived 3 weeks ago is in the following state:

BIAS and eggs (few and patchy for both)
but all capped larvae are drones
walls being extended around all reasonably large
one capped emergency queen cell

and loads of pollen and capped honey/syrup (I did feed when first hived)

I watched the queen walk in as I hived.

Help please
 
Last edited:
thanks - eggs in botton of cells so I assume there is a queen that is good at hiding.

Could the one queen cell contain what was a fertilised egg?

Could it not?
 
Had almost the same, poor cast removed from wall cavity in barn.... Q captured and was marked with blue... a lot of comb with stores and brood put in capture box... most of flying bees returned to box.

Set up in National BB with drawn comb and blocking boards with original comb in between.

Checked to see if all ok 8 days after... no queen no eggs! but masses of bees....
put frame of queen cell from out apiary to see if a queen would hatch... left for 21 days.. lots of activity around hive entrance... yesterday found two emergency cells...
no queen or any eggs or small brood seen

Fortunately summer is not over quite yet in the Tamar Valley.... wasps have only just started laying into the plums!
 
A colony with a DLQ will at some point work out what is wrong and try in vain to raise queen cells from unfertilized eggs. Of course, nothing will come of them.
 
thanks for your answers, this place is fantastic. Not what I wanted to hear though! :(

Just have to decide whether there are enough of them to warrant adding a frame from my favourite hive.
 
"Just have to decide whether there are enough of them to warrant adding a frame from my favourite hive."

remember you need to remove the DLQ (and the QC) first - the QC is a supercedure one as the colony is not Q-, just have a "defective" queen, as sensed by the bees.
 
Just have to decide whether there are enough of them to warrant adding a frame from my favourite hive.

A colony is nothing without a queen, and even less with a drone laying queen. I think the advice would be to find and kill the duff queen and then unite to your queenright stock.

It would be worthwhile giving this duff colony some brood only if you had opportunity to requeen it ... after killing the DLQ.

And the comb that has had drone brood in it needs to be scrapped.
 
surely any comb used to produce drones (small) in DLQ situation will still be worker spec (except for any new drawn comb.

BTW i presume that if introducing a frame of eggs after killing the queen then this must be done 5-6 days after it becomes Q- to allow the destruction of any QCs made in existing brood.
 

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