M_lo
New Bee
Hi all,
I'm in Yorkshire and new to beekeeping and I'd appreciate any opinions.
I opened up my hive for the first spring full inspection last week. The colony was strong, plenty of bees, loads of nectar and capped honey. But the only sealed brood were drones. There were very few grubs and 1-2 full frames of eggs (sitting nicely at the bottom of the cells).
I suspected a drone laying queen. A friendly local beekeeper helped out by supplying me with a frame of new eggs, so we put them in the hive and then hunted out the old queen.
The thing is that the queen we found wasn't the same one as I had in the hive at the end of last year (I saw her in September).
So the question is when was she superseded, this spring or last autumn? Is she the drone layer or is she a new queen from this year that has been mated recently (this might explain the break in the laying pattern).
Cheers
I'm in Yorkshire and new to beekeeping and I'd appreciate any opinions.
I opened up my hive for the first spring full inspection last week. The colony was strong, plenty of bees, loads of nectar and capped honey. But the only sealed brood were drones. There were very few grubs and 1-2 full frames of eggs (sitting nicely at the bottom of the cells).
I suspected a drone laying queen. A friendly local beekeeper helped out by supplying me with a frame of new eggs, so we put them in the hive and then hunted out the old queen.
The thing is that the queen we found wasn't the same one as I had in the hive at the end of last year (I saw her in September).
So the question is when was she superseded, this spring or last autumn? Is she the drone layer or is she a new queen from this year that has been mated recently (this might explain the break in the laying pattern).
Cheers