? Doomed colony with a QC in March. What's going on ?

[Jules59]

Had a look at my colonies this week - all good, except one. I'm not entirely sure how it arrived at the situation its now in.
Its a WBC double brood with a 2020 Q.
The Lower brood box frames were empty apart from a solitary sealed QC.

The Upper brood box frames had lots of stores and 3 frames had a small amount of drone brood. One of these frames has a few cells each with a single egg in the base. These didn't look like the classical laying worker eggs (ie random, multiple eggs per cell and not at the cell base). There was no worker larvae/pupae.
Number of bees was low compared with my other 4 hives and I couldn't find the marked Q.

It looks to me that the Q has died or been superseded because of running out of sperm since only drone brood is present. I presume to make the QC there must have been eggs/larvae present at least 8 days ago, but as there is no worker brood present now these eggs must have been all unfertilised. In which case where did they get the worker egg/larvae for the QC ?
Or will they use unfertilised eggs in a hopeless attempt to make a Q ?
Or is the QC considerably older and any worker brood has now hatched and drone brood is from a laying worker after all ?

Even if the QC hatches I think it very unlikely that a virgin Q will mate successfully at this time of year especially with an added cold spell due next week.
Comments welcome.

 

[Antipodes]

Had a look at my colonies this week - all good, except one. I'm not entirely sure how it arrived at the situation its now in.
Its a WBC double brood with a 2020 Q.
The Lower brood box frames were empty apart from a solitary sealed QC.
View attachment 31116
The Upper brood box frames had lots of stores and 3 frames had a small amount of drone brood. One of these frames has a few cells each with a single egg in the base. These didn't look like the classical laying worker eggs (ie random, multiple eggs per cell and not at the cell base). There was no worker larvae/pupae.
Number of bees was low compared with my other 4 hives and I couldn't find the marked Q.
View attachment 31117
It looks to me that the Q has died or been superseded because of running out of sperm since only drone brood is present. I presume to make the QC there must have been eggs/larvae present at least 8 days ago, but as there is no worker brood present now these eggs must have been all unfertilised. In which case where did they get the worker egg/larvae for the QC ?
Or will they use unfertilised eggs in a hopeless attempt to make a Q ?
Or is the QC considerably older and any worker brood has now hatched and drone brood is from a laying worker after all ?

Even if the QC hatches I think it very unlikely that a virgin Q will mate successfully at this time of year especially with an added cold spell due next week.
Comments welcome.

I have seen bees make a queen cell/s from drone egg/s in desperate circumstances.

 

[Antipodes]

Another thought, it might have nothing in it or perhaps a dead larva in it given that there were no bees on that frame and low numbers generally....they might have just left it and not uncapped/torn it down. If there weren't any bees around the cell when you opened the hive, I think anything previously alive in it would now be dead.

 

[Wilco]

Had a look at my colonies this week - all good, except one. I'm not entirely sure how it arrived at the situation its now in.
Its a WBC double brood with a 2020 Q.
The Lower brood box frames were empty apart from a solitary sealed QC.
View attachment 31116
The Upper brood box frames had lots of stores and 3 frames had a small amount of drone brood. One of these frames has a few cells each with a single egg in the base. These didn't look like the classical laying worker eggs (ie random, multiple eggs per cell and not at the cell base). There was no worker larvae/pupae.
Number of bees was low compared with my other 4 hives and I couldn't find the marked Q.
View attachment 31117
It looks to me that the Q has died or been superseded because of running out of sperm since only drone brood is present. I presume to make the QC there must have been eggs/larvae present at least 8 days ago, but as there is no worker brood present now these eggs must have been all unfertilised. In which case where did they get the worker egg/larvae for the QC ?
Or will they use unfertilised eggs in a hopeless attempt to make a Q ?
Or is the QC considerably older and any worker brood has now hatched and drone brood is from a laying worker after all ?

Even if the QC hatches I think it very unlikely that a virgin Q will mate successfully at this time of year especially with an added cold spell due next week.
Comments welcome.

You have laying workers if there are multiple eggs in a cell. This means they are definitely queenless and it's likely that, even if you were able to source a queen, that you would struggle to get her accepted, and it's likely there are no young enough bees to successfully rear brood anyway. Sadly this means shaking them out is your best course of action. They may desperately try to raise queens themselves from unfertile eggs but it's only going to give drones.

 

[Finman]

Not much going. Practically dead colony.
Let the birds eate brood from combs.

 

[Antipodes]

"One of these frames has a few cells each with a single egg in the base. These didn't look like the classical laying worker eggs (ie random, multiple eggs per cell and not at the cell base)."

Jules, did you get a photo of these cells with eggs by any chance?
How certain are you that there was no queen in there?

 

[Jules59]

Jules, did you get a photo of these cells with eggs by any chance? No I didnt - wish I had in retrospect, but I had managed to propolyse my phone.
How certain are you that there was no queen in there? She had been easy to find last year and there wasn't a huge number of bees for her to hide amongst. But it is possible I missed her (I've missed Qs many times before )

Either way I'm fairly certain the colony is doomed, as confirmed by my esteemed colleagues on here.

 

[Jules59]

I was going to re-queen that colony this year anyway as they were a swarmy lot. In retrospect I should have re-queened last year and then I probably would not have had a failed Q before the season got going.

 

[Finman]

No idea to take more pictures or wonder, what has happened. It just happened. Lets move on....

 

[Wilco]

You have laying workers if there are multiple eggs in a cell. This means they are definitely queenless and it's likely that, even if you were able to source a queen, that you would struggle to get her accepted, and it's likely there are no young enough bees to successfully rear brood anyway. Sadly this means shaking them out is your best course of action. They may desperately try to raise queens themselves from unfertile eggs but it's only going to give drones.

Seen post from @Antipodes and realised I've misread the OP. My apologies @Jules59 - and thanks to @Antipodes.

 

[ericbeaumont]

empty apart from a solitary sealed QC

Was it from last year or this, Jules?
Finman makes a good point: did you shake out and move on?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Laying worker - that random QC looks a poor one anyway even if it was in a healthy Q+ colony.
Shake out and move on

 

[Antipodes]

Jules (@Jules59) as a matter of interest (& you may have seen it anyhow), there seems to be another one of those queen cells here which looks like you've accidentally scuffed open in removing the frame. It looks empty actually.

 

[hemo]

As db colony could be an old failed QC from last Autumn also what appears to be a lot of varroa poo around the cell top inner edges.
The spotty brood is a sign of laying workers.
Colony likely not only suffering from Q failure but also demise aided by varroa.

 

[hemo]

In the first pic certain I can see varroa poo and no discernible eggs laid.
The colony probably has been in this state for some months starting likely with a late SS effort last Autumn.

 

[hemo]

What do folks make of this, appears to to look like the a poor scrubby DLQ is present ( likely an unmated dlq ?) certainly not a very good looking specimen.
Still has the characteristic looking darker hind legs and a narrower pointier abdomen.
Any other thoughts or is it just the poor angle of the stance in the pic ?

 

[Finman]

Yes, that one bee has very swollen abdomen.

But in researches it is said, that you must operate the abdomen to see, how swollen are eggs inside the worker.

 

[Jules59]

Was it from last year or this, Jules?
Finman makes a good point: did you shake out and move on?

Pics taken a few days ago. Going to shake out after lunch.

 

[Jules59]

What do folks make of this, appears to to look like the a poor scrubby DLQ is present ( likely an unmated dlq ?) certainly not a very good looking specimen.
Still has the characteristic looking darker hind legs and a narrower pointier abdomen.
Any other thoughts or is it just the poor angle of the stance in the pic ?

Could well be - well spotted

 

[Jules59]

In the first pic certain I can see varroa poo and no discernible eggs laid.
The colony probably has been in this state for some months starting likely with a late SS effort last Autumn.

FWIW Colony was monitored with V board several times last year and this January (daily drop rate always less than 1 per day. Treated with MAQS and trickle OA.

Thanks for the comments. As everyone says - let's move on.