Drones trapped in Queen Excuder.

[buzzerB]

Hi,
Yesterday when we checked one of our hives we found large numbers of drones dead and trapped in the Queen excluder. See photo attached. They are head up suggesting they were trying to get in and up. We were very puzzled about this until a bit of surfing suggested we have a virgin queen in the super above the excluder and the drones are searching for her. Is this correct? Did not think to search supers for brood at the time!

If so, is it too late to release the virgin queen; if I can find her? I will list timing of hive events below. If she has missed her mating window she will be a drone layer and I am already trying to get rid of one of those! There were no eggs or brood of any sort in the brood box. Is there any way to tell if a queen is a drone layer by looking at her? – suspect answer to that is NO. Can you tell if she has been mated?

Is there an age limit above which workers cannot raise eggs from another colony for a queen of their own?

This hive swarmed 6th May; bees’ pollen baskets appear to be empty ever since.
4th June inspection revealed no eggs or brood; added frame of eggs and brood from another hive.
23rd June Inspection revealed as above - no eggs or brood; drones wedged in excluder.
IF I can find the Queen my plan is to put her in a nuc so that I can test her laying viability and then repeat the import of a frame with eggs and brood etc from another colony to this problem hive – any other ideas?

 

[viridens]

Were there stores in the brood box?

I have seen this when the only stores were in the super, and the drones were doing their best to get at it.

 

[Swarm]

Agreed. More likely trying to find a good meal.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Were there stores in the brood box?

I have seen this when the only stores were in the super, and the drones were doing their best to get at it.

Drones don't feed themselves.

 

[drstitson]

"Drones don't feed themselves"

i thought they did if desperate.

 

[viridens]

"Drones don't feed themselves"

i thought they did if desperate.

I have seen them with heads down in cells -perhaps they were just being shy?

 

[Hivemaker.]

Not that i'm aware of,i believe they cannot feed themselves,they rely on the workers....if no workers they just die. certainly caged drones will not feed themselves...they die instead.

Are there no workers in the hive mentioned above?

 

[buzzerB]

Thanks folks. Yes plenty of honey and pollen in the brood!

The thing that I thought of first is that the drone hive [mentioned earlier] is right next to this colony so i thought they were after the supers.

I have noticed for the past week there have been bee legs on the varroa board - now i know where they're from.

 

[drstitson]

HM - i think the crucial factor here is pollen - drones need to be fed this and will get weak and hence evicted in times of shortfall. obviously they cannot collect their own!!!!
however wrt honey - they apparently can feed themselves when newly hatched (until they learn that they have skivvies to do it for them).

 

[Midland Beek]

At a guess ... you have got a drone laying queen that is small enough to pass through the queen excluder and that is laying eggs in the super which turn into stunted drones.

 

[oliver90owner]

Is there an age limit above which workers cannot raise eggs from another colony for a queen of their own?

This one is easy. No age limit on eggs. They can either be 0, 1, 2, or up to 3 days. After that they 'hatch' into larvae.

The rest? As regards a queen above the Q/E if there were one, she has been there over 7 weeks? Some information on the frame added June 4 might be good otherwise we are only guessing at the recent history since the swarm.

If the queen was easily able to negotiate the excluder she would likely have got mated and then become trapped above (abdomen rather than thorax). If she got mated, she would almost certainly be laying by now. Check the super(s) for brood.

You need to get a positive Q- test result from a test frame and requeen, I would say.

RAB

BTW 6 days is likely the answer to your egg question if you didn't mean eggs.

 

[buzzerB]

Just to put the cap on this one.

It appeared that the drones were getting stuck on their way UP to the supers so I guess the drones were just hungry. There was nothing but honey in the supers.
Thank you everyone.