Did they go..or did they stay?

[Tremyfro]

We have a colony.
On 4.7.16..... The queen was seen....eggs were seen...bias.
14.7.16 ....there were eggs...bias...didn't see the queen....no queen cells seen.
27.7.16.... No eggs seen....sealed brood seen....no queen seen....no queen cells seen.
My OH thinks the colony has swarmed.
I think the queen is resting.
We gave a frame with eggs on it to see if they make queen cells.
My question is...would they swarm without making any queen cells?
Just because we didn't see them on inspection...it is possible there were some....well hidden. Otherwise we would have seen them.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

few of mine have taken brood breaks

 

[juanito]

Greetings,
Our Queens go off lay when the temperatures are constantly above 32C, Which is most of july and august.

 

[pargyle]

few of mine have taken brood breaks

I've got two at the moment, one with no brood present and one with only a couple of small patches of brood - could be with the fine weather we've had they are concentrating on foraging and storing rather than rearing ? I'm not worried unduly - I've seen summer brood breaks before and they usually come round after a week or two and then the queen is full on for a few weeks when autumn approaches.

At the same time I have a colony from a swarm and it's wall to wall brood - 8 frames out of 11 on about 80% brood and a small patch of brood in the super which they are currently building out ... she's going to be a good one I think.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

With one hidden queencell that you are yet to find, you could have supercedure with the old girl gone.
Very unlikely to swarm without a queencell.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

With one hidden queencell that you are yet to find, you could have supercedure with the old girl gone.
Very unlikely to swarm without a queencell.

very unlikely to kill the old queen before the new one is laying either

 

[Tremyfro]

Well...I am holding out for a brood break too. We put in the frame of bias...as insurance against 'sudden death syndrome' of the queen...ha ha. I am not expecting to see queen cells on it. It will in all likelihood be returned to the hive it came from next week.
Funnily enough....the Flow hive queen had a short brood break during the cold and windy weather we had a few weeks ago. I was thinking ...whaaaat!....When we looked in this week...wall to wall brood....some frames were white with larvae when you looked at them. This colony has been faffing about thinking of swarming all spring and I thought it had finally settled down. I'm hoping they will concentrate on filling the Flow frames.
Juanito....temperatures like that are in my dreams! It isn't that warm here...sadly.

 

[Hivemaker.]

With one hidden queencell that you are yet to find, you could have supercedure with the old girl gone.

Yes... and sure to cause a brood break until the virgin queen gets mated.

 

[Tremyfro]

You may be right......the queen was marked blue....she has always laid a lot of drone brood. I bought a new carniolan queen and was all prepared to requeen but our bee inspector came. I told her about the drones and said I suspected she could be becoming a drone layer. However, she pointed out the laying pattern and told us that some colonies wanted more drones in their colonies and that she was fine. So we left her in the colony. There are still frames of sealed worker brood in there.
She has always been illusive...sometimes we haven't seen her for weeks. I didn't worry as there have always been eggs....not this time though.

 

[Tremyfro]

An update...because it is good to have a conclusion.
The bees made 3 queen cells on the test frame...so they were queenless.
Why were they queenless????
All the queen cells were sealed and we expect emergence on the 11/8. I took one ....and she will become an Aga Queen....for insurance. One we removed as it looked a bit as if they had unsealed it and resealed it. Left them with one queen cell.

 

[pargyle]

An update...because it is good to have a conclusion.
The bees made 3 queen cells on the test frame...so they were queenless.
Why were they queenless????
All the queen cells were sealed and we expect emergence on the 11/8. I took one ....and she will become an Aga Queen....for insurance. One we removed as it looked a bit as if they had unsealed it and resealed it. Left them with one queen cell.

I think your OH is right ...they had swarmed, you missed a queen cell somewhere (they can be quite clever at hiding them sometimes), virgin left on mating flight and either failed or got lost - or possiby squished accidentally ...

Other alternative is that your old queen was failing but still present ... died off from natural causes or you squished her accidentally - no fresh eggs for them to raise a new queen until you put your test frame in.

Either way the Colony ends up queenless .... but why worry about what happened ? The way forward is a new queen, you just might have enough time to get her mated but it's getting late, some colonies are already kicking drones out.

You might have to keep an eye on the colony and if you don't have a laying queen by the end of August I would be seriously thinking about combining them with another colony to overwinter with a working queen. (after despatching any queen you found of course). Waste of a colony if she doesn't get going ...

 

[Tremyfro]

Yep...that is good advice.
I have several nucs with laying queens so I can do a combine later if necessary.
Don't you just hate it when OH is right!
It does seem strange that they didn't make queen cells though. Surely they wouldn't make just one?
However, she was a last years queen and she always made lots of drones...so the colony will probably be better off with a new queen.
Do you think it better to do a combine now rather than later?
Or I could introduce a new queen from one of the nucs and put the queen cell in the nuc.

 

[pargyle]

Do you think it better to do a combine now rather than later?
Or I could introduce a new queen from one of the nucs and put the queen cell in the nuc.

Depends what you want - plenty of options.

You have two virgins emerging in about ten days - you could put each of those cells in a nuc with some bees and frames of stores so you could let them see if they can make viable colonies (ie: they get mated and start laying) then you have two nucs you could overwinter which would be worth £150 each come April/May next year.

If they don't get mated you can combine the colonies later on with a queenright colony.

 

[Tremyfro]

Depends what you want - plenty of options.

You have two virgins emerging in about ten days - you could put each of those cells in a nuc with some bees and frames of stores so you could let them see if they can make viable colonies (ie: they get mated and start laying) then you have two nucs you could overwinter which would be worth £150 each come April/May next year.

If they don't get mated you can combine the colonies later on with a queenright colony.

Oh God...even more choices!
I think I might use the big fat golden queen from one of my nucs and introduce her to the large colony. I will put the frame with the queen cell into the nuc...see how it does. The Aga Queen can have her own colony if she emerges.
As you say...I will have a few over wintered nucs to sell...or replace winter colony deaths! Having experienced some losses last winter I don't feel I can be complacent about not needing them. I'm glad I over wintered couple of nucs last winter.