Duff queen - AGAIN ! Some questions.

[greengumbo]

So continuing from my other thread about eggs being found last week this was my last post......turns out she is a drone layer afterall - grrrrrrrr.

My original queen was laying nice worker brood then the bees in their infinite wisdom supersedured her. Things going fine, eggs found last week then last night found it is all drone.

I am going to get a replacement queen. Should have done it a long time ago but ho hum its all good experience.

Will be hunting the DLQ as soon as the weather gets better.

A few questions:

1. What should I do with the capped drone brood at the moment ?
Scrape it out, score it ? Will they clean out / repair the cells ?
I dont have any spare drawn frames so I would like to keep these ones in use.

2. Ditto unsealed cells with eggs in ?

3. I am treating with apilife var at the moment. When I introduce the new queen is this likely to mask the pheremone or anything ?

4. Any other hints on queen introduction etc ?

There are plenty of bees in the colony so I am determined to keep trying to get it through winter. Some introduction to the art ! Its been fun though

 

[meidel]

I had similar earlier on so can't comment on the effects of apilife var but with a strong colony and a honey flow, they repaired the scored combs - at this time of year, perhaps give them a small amount of spring feed ie 1:1 to help them with repairing the comb when your new queen starts laying.

 

[Poly Hive]

I certainly would not attempt queen intro with other substances being used in the hive as yes you are right the pheromones will be masked.

On intro do not let them at the candy until they are how shall I say behaving normally, as in not mobbing the cage and at that point remove the barrier and let them let her out.

Bees can tunnel through a substantial candy plug a lot faster than many realise.

PH

 

[greengumbo]

I certainly would not attempt queen intro with other substances being used in the hive as yes you are right the pheromones will be masked.

On intro do not let them at the candy until they are how shall I say behaving normally, as in not mobbing the cage and at that point remove the barrier and let them let her out.

Bees can tunnel through a substantial candy plug a lot faster than many realise.

PH

Thanks PH. I have sourced a queen so it will be posted tomorrow. Will play hunt the queen tonight and will remove the apilife var as well.

Would you recommend leaving the intro slide on for 24h then letting them at the candy then ?

Anything I should do when the queen arrives by post to keep her in top condition or should I immediately take her out to the hive. I'll be at work no doubt !

 

[meidel]

give them a drop of water

 

[Poly Hive]

Drop of water and out the light to reduce stress.

PH

 

[greengumbo]

So obviously I went to knock the drone layer on the head yesterday and could I find her ? Could I buggery.

New queen arrives later today by post so will have another attempt this afternoon.

Any hints on keeping new mated queen alive in cage for a few days in case I still cant find her or is that not an option ?

 

[meidel]

Drone layers are notoriously difficult to find! One method is to split the colony in two and the one with no new eggs is obviously queenless and the new queen could safely be ntroduced there In the meantime keep splitting the other half until you eventually have so few frames of bees you might be able to see her!

I've heard that queens can be kept for a week in their cage provided they still have workers in there with them and there's still enough candy - just keep giving them some water, away from light and other noxious substances, eg insecticides, etc..

 

[Hebeegeebee]

A long time in the cage will increase nosema (why workers should be removed after a long caging) and the chance of an early supercedure will be higher. However the queen should keep for a few days.

If you have laying workers, they'll probably kill the queen in the cage. If you have a DLQ in the hive, then she should be findable. If you can't find her, shake the bees off the combs down into an empty brood box. Then qween excluder on top. Brood chamber on top of that. After a few hours the bees will cover the brood leaving the queen and maybe a few drones below the excluder for easy location. (It does work).

For queen introduction, leave the pastic tab in place over the candy for 3 days before breaking it off, then allow the bees to eat her out of the cage (a few hours probably). If there is no forage, gentle feeding will do no harm.
Leave for at least 3 or 4 days before checking or there's a risk of balling the new queen.

 

[greengumbo]

A long time in the cage will increase nosema (why workers should be removed after a long caging) and the chance of an early supercedure will be higher. However the queen should keep for a few days.

If you have laying workers, they'll probably kill the queen in the cage. If you have a DLQ in the hive, then she should be findable. If you can't find her, shake the bees off the combs down into an empty brood box. Then qween excluder on top. Brood chamber on top of that. After a few hours the bees will cover the brood leaving the queen and maybe a few drones below the excluder for easy location. (It does work).

For queen introduction, leave the pastic tab in place over the candy for 3 days before breaking it off, then allow the bees to eat her out of the cage (a few hours probably). If there is no forage, gentle feeding will do no harm.
Leave for at least 3 or 4 days before checking or there's a risk of balling the new queen.

Cheers everyone. Seems every other thread on here at the moment is about DLQs and finding them !

I'll try having another look through the hive then if no luck will try that brood box method. Pretty sure it is a DLQ not laying workers as single eggs in the bottom of cells and nice pattern.

 

[greengumbo]

Did yet another carefull search yesterday afternoon with no luck. Its only a 6 frame hive so you think I would find her !

I then shaked off the bees into the brood box after removing frames and then put a QX and lastly a 2nd brood box with the frames on top hoping the workers would crawl up leaving a stranded queen. Left it for a few hours but the bees just stayed down.

Reassembled the hive and then this morning moved it into a nearby field on a sheet. Took three frames and shook bees off into this field hive. Put the frames in a fresh hive on the original spot and then left for work. Its a lovely sunny day so hopefully the workers will fly back from field to the old hive leaving far less bees to check.

New queen arrived yesterday afternoon so gave her some water and kept in the airing cupboard. She looked fine this morning.

If worst comes to worst and I cant find the old queen I will have to put her in the hive and hope for the best

Any pointers as to how I can tell by the bees behaviour if they are q-less ?

 

[meidel]

queenless indicators - grumpiness and if you have young larvae or eggs in the 3 frames you brought back they might try and build queencells, yeap, even out of drone eggs!

 

[greengumbo]

queenless indicators - grumpiness and if you have young larvae or eggs in the 3 frames you brought back they might try and build queencells, yeap, even out of drone eggs!

That would be usefull to see !

Would they try even in one day or are they likely to be too stressed by all my meddling ?

 

[meidel]

I'm not sure how soon you'll see, I usually inspect anything from 5 - 10 days in the active season and I've noticed q- colonies building QCs on my testframes as early as 5 days ...
edited to add - it would be safe to say your original hive site would be q- .. unless they're swarming, queens which have started to lay don't usually fly, not even a few cms (!!)

 

[greengumbo]

Good news. The method worked a treat.

In the evening I opened up the field hive and there were very few bees. I lifted out the two frames that were together and "read them like a book". Found the queen in about 30s and took her out. I then reassembled the hive and later that evening put my new queen in the cage between 2 frames. I left them to it until just 10 mins ago when I went and took the tab off the candy plug. There were a few bees scrambling over the cage, not loads though. Is that a bad or good sign or is it what Poly Hive would call balling ?

Anyway will leave her to get on with it. Fingers crossed.

Thanks everyone for the advice.

 

[meidel]

I saw a guy use what he called a match test - he ran a match stick along the cage - if the bees lifted their legs up to let the stick pass it's ok they've accepted the queen. if however they clung on to the cage and were resistant to the stick it would not be a good sign. But I've never tried it myself, and since you've broken the plastic tab already all you can do is hope for the best and not disturb them for another week or so.

Re balling, I'd released a queen into a mating nuc of bees a couple of months ago and saw all the bees in a ball around her at the bottom and thought that was the end of her but a day later saw her going about ok... so it goes to show balling doesn't always mean the end for the queen...

 

[beeno]

Good news. The method worked a treat.

Well done you. Keep my fingers crossed for you.