? destroyed queen emergancy

[Harvey]

Hi everyone
I am a first time bee keeper I compleated a course at Lincoln university summer last year.

I recieved my first bees on th 15 June 2010 a little later than I wanted but weather dictated. My bees are buckfast and came as a 5 frame nuc nice quiet bees.

Every thing was going fine building up nicely occupying 8 frames, brood at all stages eggs on my last inspection 30 June. On the 7th July Bee inspector came whilst I was at work my other half delt with him, he said every thing was ok.

I did not open the hive myself as he had done so and I did not want to disturb them to often. I inspected them yesterday evening, their are no eggs no uncapped brood just sealed and they had not built up scince I last checked them myself, What I did find is 3 lovely sealed queen cells at the top of one frame.

My quandry is assumeing my queen has been killed accidenltly. Shall I let the bees get on with it and leave them alone for a few weeks to raise their own queen or buy in a queen?.

I had got my heart set on buckfast bees so the new queen is bound to mate with someone elses drones and I cant seem to find anyone selling buckfast queens on the internet. Thornes are just 15 mins down the road from me but they dont have buck fast queens but I can get a queen for Thursday from them.

it is getting a bit late in the season for tying to get a colony built up for the winter.SO HELP WHAT SHALL I DO?
many thanks
Harvey

 

[garethbryson]

Sorry to hear your tale of woe, I'm in exactly the same situation myself but as my bees are mongerels to start off with i dont really mind what i get.

Here is a link to someone that sells buckfast queens on line.



http://honeybeesuppliers.co.uk/Queens - Buckfast.htm

I hope this helps.

Gareth...............

 

[susbees]

I had got my heart set on buckfast bees so the new queen is bound to mate with someone elses drones and I cant seem to find anyone selling buckfast queens on the internet.

Sorry to hear what happened.

However, unless you are prepared to pay for instrumentally inseminated queens from pure stock or import an island mated queen from, say, Denmark, you will have to accept that your queen will mate with whatever's around. That's the nature of the beast.

 

[Crg]

Here is a link to someone that sells buckfast queens on line.

http://honeybeesuppliers.co.uk/Queens - Buckfast.htm

IMO you'd be better off getting queens from here http://www.buckfast.dk/uk.htm or a cheaper option Bickerstaffs bickerstaffs.website.orange.co.uk/

 

[Hivemaker.]

If you get one from from honeybee supplier or Bickerstaffes.....they come from the same place....which is Batsis....in greece, not pure buckfast.

 

[MuswellMetro]

if money is no problem then requeen as you need to biuld them up for winter otherwise let them re queen

Then sort it out next spring/summer with a new Buckfast queen

 

[Crg]

If you get one from from honeybee supplier or Bickerstaffes.....they come from the same place....which is Batsis....in greece, not pure buckfast.

Bickerstaffs aren't pure buckfast, but you still get a relatively good prolific buckfast type queen, suitable for building up the hive for winter, and get it quickly, which seems to be what is wanted here.
Also they the most helpful supplier I've dealt with in the UK.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Not from my own experiance.....but not going to go into that.

 

[Harvey]

are you letting nature take its course or buying in
H

 

[garethbryson]

I'm just letting nature take its course..