Eggs, Whats wrong?

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Busy Bee

House Bee
Joined
Mar 1, 2009
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Location
N. Ireland
Hive Type
National
I have a nuc which I looked at Saturday. There is eggs everywhere but I can't find the queen. I looked today still can't find the queen eggs not capped nor jellied. all eggs looked quite normal. Can't figure this out.

Any ideas


Busy Bee.
 
One egg per cell, and in the middle of the cells?
 
As Hivemaker says, did you see just one egg in each cell ?
 
One egg per cell, and in the middle of the cells?

Yep as above, looks like typical brood pattern. Its as if the quuen laid up the nuc and Fked off. It seems as if the bees are waiting for next instruction or event. Very strange behaviour.

Maybe I need to take a much closer look and see if there is and irregular laying. 3 frames all eggs its hard to believe nothing else has happened.


Busy Bee
 
so saturday to wednesday, still eggs means the eggs cannot be fertile and have not hatched..unless they have hatched and still look like eggs as early stage grubs are very small and like curved eggs

i would inspect on saturday and if necessary requeen
 
~No Still eggs, standing up its stange. Eggs should be larvae stage at least curved and in jelly although small.

I think requeen or disband the nuc.


Busy Bee
 
Have another look....the eggs will be larvae by now.
 
Have another look....the eggs will be larvae by now.

Yes, I will give it more attention and look a bit closer. If it is still not correct what should I do with it?


Ahh, just remembered it had 4 queen cups with an egg in each and 1 on the top of the comb with 5-6 eggs in it.

Busy Bee
 
Take a few pictures if you are still concerned and post them for all to see.
 
I have 2 hives with virgins in them but there is eggs on the varroa floor but no eggs in the cells, is this laying workers also?


Busy Bee
 
Is there a solution or should I wait on virgin to be mated or will they kill the virgin or even wait till she returns mated and kill her. Or will the colony extract the worker layers when the hive becomes queen right? Or the virgin is already dead?

Busy Bee
 
Last edited:
You are back to the shake the bees off system to get rid of both the laying workers and the stale virgin.

Any idea how long the virgin has been hatched?

PH
 
Ideally she should of had more than enough time to mate by now and started to lay. I give my queens 4 weeks in total, if I dont see capped worker brood I don't waste any more time if the weather has been nice.

I would say catch her in a queen clip and if you can put a test frame in with eggs, failing that beg or buy a known mated queen from some where before the colony size drops rapidly. If you cant kill the queen by pinching her pop her in the deep freeze for 10-15 mins in the queen clip.
 

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