Drone Layer

[Davea]

I did some inspections over the weekend.
One colony is romping away and laying up very well
The queen in the hive next door is a drone layer.
Is it worth transferring a frame of brood even though it's early on the season.
In my book, it is. If they choose to make a new queen then there are drones on the way to mate with her.
I having nothing to lose but all to gain- that's my view.
Opinions please-no doubt I'll get plenty of those!!
Dave

 

[Silly Bee]

I'd say it was worth a shot.

I take it you now have bees.

 

[drstitson]

"then there are drones on the way to mate with her."

"on the way" is no good.

frame of brood = virgin queen in 12-14 days. ready for mating flights after another 5 days (17-19 days; so less than 3 weeks from insertion).

drones take 24 days to emerge and then at least another 2 weeks to become mature ie around 40 days.

realistically you need emerged drones to be present already before thinking about starting off queens.

IMHO - unite with strong colony, hopefully get a really good strong colony for the early spring flow/OSR and then use method of choice to split, make nucs, AS etc. early.

 

[susbees]

In my book, it is. If they choose to make a new queen then there are drones on the way to mate with her.

Drones are not sexually mature until realistically 16 days of age....so that's 40 days from the egg (some books say 12 but the limited Instrumental Insemination I've done showed lots of immature drones). Queens take 15 or 16 days to hatch and are stale by around three weeks. 37 days maximum...and you really are better if they mate much earlier than that.

So it really isn't worth the effort until you have plenty drones around the purple eye stage unless you have a queen breeder near you who has drones off to an early start.

IMHO.

 

[drstitson]

snap!

 

[furnitureman]

As the hive already has a queen would a new queen be raised from the frame of brood

 

[drstitson]

only if the DLQ is killed/removed first.

 

[MandF]

Think I have the same problem here - waiting for an inspection later this week to confirm. If she is a DLQ then I am resigned to having lost both my hives this winter.

I will set up a bait hive in a vain attempt at nabbing a swarm, and get on local association swarm list, but if we dont get an early swarm then it looks like no crop (and no income) this year.

Pretty crap to be saying this at the very start of the year!

 

[susbees]

snap!

Can you tell it takes AGES for me to type a post?!

 

[susbees]

Think I have the same problem here - waiting for an inspection later this week to confirm. If she is a DLQ then I am resigned to having lost both my hives this winter.

I will set up a bait hive in a vain attempt at nabbing a swarm, and get on local association swarm list, but if we dont get an early swarm then it looks like no crop (and no income) this year.

Pretty crap to be saying this at the very start of the year!

Reasonably easy to tell from the outside: the happy busy ones bringing in pollen and nibbling at fondant vs the sulky slow ones doing very little. I've got one of those

 

[MandF]

Well from the outside it looked ok. I did have some drones flying earlier in the year, but otherwise plenty of pollen laden bees. When I inspected on Sunday it was a bit of a surprise to fine an (apparently) new queen, and then lots of drone brood.

Outside the entrance yesterday I had another look, still got foragers out and about, and also some look young (furry).

I am holding onto the vain hope that its not a DLQ, like they superceded recently because the old queen was running out of fertilised eggs, or this is actually still the old queen but her paint has now fully rubbed off, and although she is failing, she is still laying some girls so that they can raise a new queen.

 

[Davea]

i should have stated that apart from drones on the way, I already have drones in the hive. So even if those drones energed the same day as the inspection took place, they would be sexually mature by the time a new queen emerged.
Dave