Dead Queen & failed combination

[Spikedog]

Regrettably once again we face spring problems. Hive (Nuc) one was down to two frames – no eggs/brood but a marked Queen. Hive two was strong but when opened no eggs/brood. Brood area being filled with nectar and unfortunately no queen – decided to combine - placed Q in butler cage (newspaper capping) for safety and used news paper method (always worked previously). Bees usually through paper overnight - After two days checked to see if she was out ... No!!! And no attempt to come through paper - Quick look today and she was dead in cage – still no attempt made to release her or to combine – Any suggestion as to why both colonies made no attempt to combine and in particular why her praetorian guard made no effort to release her or perhaps feed her?

 

[Alabamaeee]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I can't help wondering if fondant would have been a better choice in the cage?

When faced with that situation I would not have caged her, just combined with the newspaper, but I have never combined nuc's, just full colonies so my thinking may be flawed.

Put it down to experience and hopefully you will get a frame of brood from a friendly beek.

 

[Midland Beek]

Hive 1 - No brood at this time kind of says that the queen is worthless. But before doing anything with a colony like this it is a good idea to search thoroughly for another queen, ie. one which might have been produced via supersedure but which hasn't started to lay eggs yet.

Hive 2 - Has it swarmed? And what do you mean by 'no brood'? Is that 'no unsealed brood' or 'no brood at all'. If the only brood is older/sealed brood, then that colony swarmed a couple of weeks ago and you would expect a new queen to be in there. This would explain why the queen you introduced in the Butler cage was killed.

And you realize that whenever you use newspaper - for uniting or over a queen cage - you have to make starter holes. But she was maybe killed while she was in the cage. No point in releasing her when the intention of the colony was to kill her.

 

[susbees]

You say 4 hives. What was the brooding situation in the other two? And did you look hard at the "infill" for tiny islands of polished brood cells which would have shown a queen in there somewhere? Were they acting queenless or did you possibly miss an unmarked supersedure queen?