DLQ unite or shake out?

[Sutty]

Very disappointingly I looked at the last swarm I hived today. It was a cast swarm on 23rd July, last examined on 10th August when I saw the nice big dark queen, eggs and young brood and assumed she had just started to lay.
Yesterday I saw a worker carrying out a drone that looked like it had been removed from its cell just before it was ready to emerge (alive but moving very little, and still "furry").
Today I found the queen still present and a decent amount of stores but no eggs or brood except some scattered capped drone brood in worker comb
I've moved the hive so that foragers enter another hive.
Would I be best removing the queen and uniting with another hive, or shaking the remaining bees out in front of other colonies?

 

[jeff33]

I reckon you can get away with uniting to a strong hive.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

queens often have a break from laying around about now, so she may just be on a break

 

[Sutty]

queens often have a break from laying around about now, so she may just be on a break

Doesn't account for the drone brood

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Doesn't account for the drone brood

It does - think about that - in any colony, what brood would be the last to emerge?

 

[Sutty]

It does - think about that - in any colony, what brood would be the last to emerge?

Yes, but not in worker comb

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

how can you be certain? you often find the odd drone cell in the middle of worker brood

 

[Sutty]

Just drone cells, no other brood.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

How much? as I said before, once the queen stops laying, the last brood to emerge will be drone brood

 

[Sutty]

Not much - but nothing else!

 

[Sutty]

And peppered throughout the brood nest

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

perfectly normal to see this when a queen has stopped laying, whether she's died or on a brood break, so at the moment the only thing you can state with any conviction is that the queen has stopped laying and the brood is all emerging just as you would expect.

 

[GuyNir]

Have you ever seen a property sealed worker brood from this Q?
For me, this does sound like a DLQ. Swarm from end of July, I wouldn’t expect a brood break by mid/end of Aug.

 

[Sutty]

I guess I can give her another couple of weeks to see, but I'm not optimistic. I moved the hive back to its original position 1st thing this morning.
Might be worth me adding some ocimene to try to stop progression to laying workers.

 

[Anthony Appleyard]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocimene

 

[Erichalfbee]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocimene

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/tempqueen-pheromone-strips.51278/#post-784587https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/an-odd-one-vq-lw.50925/#post-778422

 

[Finman]

When the queen is a drone layer, nothing helps the the colony any more in September.

And the next door hive doest not need neighbour drones with its mites. Neither its workers are needed.

 

[Sutty]

I've left this out of curiousity more than anything. On 7/9 Q was still present though no open brood except a single charged QC. I guess this will contain a drone larva.
Does anyone know what a drone that emerges fro a QC looks like?.
No signs of laying workers.
I'm away fo a week now, then will be giving the stores to another colony and shaking out.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

you wont get laying workers if there is a queen present.

 

[Sutty]

you wont get laying workers if there is a queen present.

Could do with no brood, which is why I added the ocimene.