DISASTER !!!! Oh Dear

[Busy Bee]

Hi All,
Came home from work, 1st thing I had a look at the bees briefly. I thought not many bees coming and going I'll look after dinner.

So I went to my hive and had a look not many bees moving in both hives. I noticed 6 or 7 bees in a bunch in the grass and I thought what have they got. Got down on my knees shock horror, a new queen.

Panic stations, opened the hive 10 bloody queen cells, no eggs, larvae just capped brood and drone brood. Old queen not there.

Now this is the thing plenty of bees on every frame, bees in the supers seems to be plenty of bees in the BB not many bees flying but seems a full colony.

I got the new queen and put her into the brood box, she went straight down.

Now, what should I do? Help please!


Busy Bee

 

[David P]

Warning on i'm not talking from a great ammount of experience warning off

If it was me i would remove all queen cells except one and i would make up an insurance nuc using the frame this last remaining qc is on. Then leave em to get on with it.

If the queen you put in is accepted and mated then problem solved, if not then you have a potential new queen from the nuc, and if joy of joys you get a nicely mated queen from both then you either have a new colony to worry about or you can kill off one and unite the two back again.

David

 

[Busy Bee]

Flip, I have removed all queen cells,

Busy Bee

 

[jon]

BB
If you found a queen on the grass she probably had deformed wings and could not fly so will not be able to get mated.
Did you check if her wings were ok?
If she has bad wings she will attempt to fly and the hive will then be queenless. If there are young grubs the bees will make emergency queen cells if they are queenless but they will not do this if there is a virgin queen in the hive.