Drone laying queens...queen cells

[beekake]

Last week I checked on a swarm I'd caught some weeks earlier...headed by a virgin queen. Lots of drone brood (not patchy), but the occasional sealed worker cell. The bees had drawn several queen cells in the middle of the frames, and on checking one of them there was a metamorphosed queen in there (not pigmented). For an experiment, I added a frame of brood from another hive that had a sealed queen cell on it (a wally shaw parent colony that are still not giving up building qcs but are not swarming either!). This week, the queen cell is open (as in, emerged) and there are no larvae or eggs anywhere in the hive.

I opened up another requeened colony that seemed to be struggling...same thing...drone brood mostly but with a few worker cells and a couple of queen cells. This time, I just left the queen cells and will see what happens.

Anyone else seen this kind of thing? I'm not hopeful they'll come to anything, but interested to see if they can sort themselves out before it gets too late. My alternative plan was to shake them out, but I always see that as a last resort.

 

[Finman]

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Buy a laying queen.
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You do not get good Queen from that game.

 

[beekake]

I've got one on order ��

 

[beekake]

Update: checked on the hive this week- and after a couple of broodless weeks, found a new queen busy laying up the frames with worker brood! So the DLQ has gone and my experiment is a success of sorts. I'll give her another couple of weeks to see if she produces nice off spring and lays a good pattern, and if she does then I'll keep her in a nuc over winter as insurance for my other, full size colonies.

 

[Eyeman]

Update: checked on the hive this week- and after a couple of broodless weeks, found a new queen busy laying up the frames with worker brood! So the DLQ has gone and my experiment is a success of sorts. I'll give her another couple of weeks to see if she produces nice off spring and lays a good pattern, and if she does then I'll keep her in a nuc over winter as insurance for my other, full size colonies.

You have had failing queens, running out of sperm and they have managed to supercede her before she was a DLQ.
Hope they both work out for you.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

There's a good chance that the colony will grow enough to survive winter; there's plenty of time.