Disaster why?

[666bees]

Nuc last year, plenty of stores, no honey taken,fed fondant and replaced it last Tuesday before it ran out. Moved them two foot on Thursday after they were that busy bring in pollen it was like summer. Just checked them this morning and found the queen dead out side. They had produced queen cells last September.

Thanks

any ideas appreciated

 

[MuswellMetro]

Two scenarios at least ,so here is my two


1) The queen could have got squashed between the frames as you moved, more likey with DN1s on narrow spacers than DN5s as they rock more as you move hives

2) if you are lucky it could have been running on mother and daughter since last Septembers superscedure and it is the old queen

just wait a few days to see what happens

 

[borderer]

I would agree with the suggestions put forward by MM and I hope it turns out to be the mother, daughter scenario.

Best of luck

 

[666bees]

If they keep bringing in lots of pollen does that mean there is another queen or will I have to wait until I open the hive up.

 

[Mike a]

Think of it this way what are you going to be able to do if you open them up now and find they are queenless?

 

[Tom Bick]

Not necessarily but a good sign and I think MM has perhaps hit the nail on the head. Sit tight that’s all you can do for now.

So why did you move them

 

[666bees]

Needed to move them across the garden, I moved them very gently with my brother inlaw.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Not necessarily but a good sign and I think MM has perhaps hit the nail on the head. Sit tight that’s all you can do for now.

So why did you move them

POLLEN

Bees not only require pollen to make larva Royal jelly as emerging Bees require lots of pollen in the first few days of their life to prime their glands so they could just be collecting it for those new bees as well as making larva food

they could also be using it up to make extra Royal jelly to make a scrub queen from the last of the killed queen eggs though unlikely she will mate as few drone and the weather is against her


best to wait a few days then observe again

what if she was the only queen, well virgin scrub Q emerges in 12 days, 20 days before virgin Q goes stale ,so that's 1st April, just a faint chance she could mate but it is all against you

 

[victor meldrew]

Not necessarily but a good sign and I think MM has perhaps hit the nail on the head. Sit tight that’s all you can do for now.

So why did you move them

My thoughts Tom !
Was it to put hive on a new floor/ paving slab?, idea being to minimise disturbance ! If so queen could have dropped off bottom of frame unseen into grass?
I hope not!.
All is not lost, MM could be correct ,or as I suspect, there will be brood in there and bees are already creating Queen cells , in three four weeks weather should be fair enough for an early mating , drones will be about I suspect (maybe mature enough to mate)
Nil Desparandim excuse the fractured Latin .

This is an occasion where "Wait and See "applies.

John Wilkinson

 

[RoofTops]

Probably difficult to tell in this case but when examining a colony which was planning to supercede I found the old queen one day looking very thin. She had gone by the next inspection. I suspect the bees stop feeding the old queen if they are happy with the new one so a queen turfed out through supercedure might look a bit emaciated. If she looked healthy this might be a bad sign in this case.

 

[666bees]

The bees are now very busy flying but none of them are bringing in pollen.