Emergency queen cell disaster..

[Forester Doug]

Hello there I am in need of some sound advice.

I have had a right ball ache of a year with beekeeping (this is my 2nd year). My colony split in two with a swarm and a second cast swarm which I recovered. I was left with 2 colonies, the original with new cast queen and a swarm with an original swarm queen.

These bees were aggressive all year, and made beekeeping a chore. So I decided to re-queen the swarm with a nice mail order queen, they are doing lovely l, but due to the late swarm they may be a little shy and lacking in preparation for winter

My original hive I placed the remove queen from the swarm into as I believed she had mated, she took over that hive and was laying, so now i had two functioning colonies.

I wanted to unite them and was searching for weeks for the queen in the original colony to snuff her. This culminates in having a thorough search, killing a lot of bees in the process, but I couldn't confirm I had got the queen as I never found her.

I couldn't get back in to check for emergency queen cells due to weather and work commitments, now today to my dismay I found 7 emergency queen cells open in that hive, I must have got the queen, but didn't unite the colonies due to nit having a confirmed kill.

What can I do now? Will there only be 1 emergency queen left? Can she mate at this time of the year (I didn't see an drone cells)? Can I still unite the colonies or is it best to wait till after winter now? - my only fear is both colonies will fail. Any advice gratefully received.

 

[Amari]

Hello there I am in need of some sound advice.

I have had a right ball ache of a year with beekeeping (this is my 2nd year). My colony split in two with a swarm and a second cast swarm which I recovered. I was left with 2 colonies, the original with new cast queen and a swarm with an original swarm queen.

These bees were aggressive all year, and made beekeeping a chore. So I decided to re-queen the swarm with a nice mail order queen, they are doing lovely l, but due to the late swarm they may be a little shy and lacking in preparation for winter

My original hive I placed the remove queen from the swarm into as I believed she had mated, she took over that hive and was laying, so now i had two functioning colonies.

I wanted to unite them and was searching for weeks for the queen in the original colony to snuff her. This culminates in having a thorough search, killing a lot of bees in the process, but I couldn't confirm I had got the queen as I never found her.

I couldn't get back in to check for emergency queen cells due to weather and work commitments, now today to my dismay I found 7 emergency queen cells open in that hive, I must have got the queen, but didn't unite the colonies due to nit having a confirmed kill.

What can I do now? Will there only be 1 emergency queen left? Can she mate at this time of the year (I didn't see an drone cells)? Can I still unite the colonies or is it best to wait till after winter now? - my only fear is both colonies will fail. Any advice gratefully received.

She won't mate this late in the year and will no longer be fertile if you keep her as a virgin overwinter.

Best to destroy the queen cells and unite.

Not ideal to be rummaging in the brood boxes this late in the year. Maybe try and get a mentor for the spring

 

[Forester Doug]

She won't mate this late in the year and will no longer be fertile if you keep her as a virgin overwinter.

Best to destroy the queen cells and unite.

Not ideal to be rummaging in the brood boxes this late in the year. Maybe try and get a mentor for the spring

They queen cells all empty, so either hatched or dispatched by the first emerged queen.

I'm worried if I unite them without finding the emerged queens/remaining queen and dispatching her my good mail order queen may get killed by her, then I'd really be knee deep.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

today to my dismay I found 7 emergency queen cells open in that hive,

When you say open - do you mean the queens have emerged or they have yet to cap the cells?
Makes a big difference to what advice you follow

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Posts crossed
So you have an unmated queen running around in there - uniting could be a bit of a lottery in that case

 

[Forester Doug]

Yeah at least 1 un-mated queen running about, assuming she dispatched the others there were 7 hatched/dispatched cells in total.

 

[Apple]

Yeah at least 1 un-mated queen running about, assuming she dispatched the others there were 7 hatched/dispatched cells in total.

Some hope.... but on a warm and dry day.... shake the suspected VQ colony onto a sheet and when reassembling the hive put a QX on the bottom.
All the bees except the queen ( Virgin or otherwise) and any drones will be on the outside.
When all bees returned to roost on the frames... merge the box of bees with newspaper onto the other Q+ colony.
Just lift up the box and leave the QX on the stand......
You never know we may get a few Halcion days or even an Indian summer yet!!

Chons da

 

[Forester Doug]

Some hope.... but on a warm and dry day.... shake the suspected VQ colony onto a sheet and when reassembling the hive put a QX on the bottom.
All the bees except the queen ( Virgin or otherwise) and any drones will be on the outside.
When all bees returned to roost on the frames... merge the box of bees with newspaper onto the other Q+ colony.
Just lift up the box and leave the QX on the stand......
You never know we may get a few Halcion days or even an Indian summer yet!!

Chons da

Thanks for the advice, I will try that.

It may have been the swarm queen mated then re-entered but I definitely put it in the brood box with queen excluder on top and found her trapped in the super. So either she squeezed through whilst still growing or she re-entered in the super hole after mating flight. Just made me a little unsure of the ability of queen excluder on fresh queens.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Thanks for the advice, I will try that.

So either she squeezed through whilst still growing or she re-entered in the super hole

If queens can fit through a QX before mating, they will after, as the thorax (which is the part they can't fit through) remains the same size.
Why do you have a hole in the supers

 

[Forester Doug]

If queens can fit through a QX before mating, they will after, as the thorax (which is the part they can't fit through) remains the same size.
Why do you have a hole in the supers

To allow foraging bees quick access in the summer to stores, and then forms part of ventilation in the winter.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

To allow foraging bees quick access in the summer to stores, and then forms part of ventilation in the winter.

Why do you think they need ventilation?

 

[Forester Doug]

Had condensation build up in previous years and mould, I understand that bees usually survive the cold, but not wet and cold.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Had condensation build up in previous years and mould, I understand that bees usually survive the cold, but not wet and cold.

'Ventilation' probably gave you a cold crownboard and caused the condensation - close up any holes in the crownboard (and anywhere else) put a slab of celotex insulation under the roof, make sure there's no air spaces and you won't get condensation

 

[Forester Doug]

I will try that thanks. Before I had a similar way, but I used an eke to house the insulation, but perhaps it didn't fill the space totally that lead to the problem. So I will out the insulation straight onto the crown board this year.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I will try that thanks. Before I had a similar way, but I used an eke to house the insulation, but perhaps it didn't fill the space totally that lead to the problem. So I will out the insulation straight onto the crown board this year.

What I've done with all my roofs is cut a piece of 50mm celotex to snughly fit inside each one, it's then permanently fixed in place

 

[RichardBeeW]

'Ventilation' probably gave you a cold crownboard and caused the condensation - close up any holes in the crownboard (and anywhere else) put a slab of celotex insulation under the roof, make sure there's no air spaces and you won't get condensation

Just a question JBM (again ). My wife’s an artist and I’ve just lined her storage shed (canvasses etc) with brand new 50mm thick 8’ x 4’ sheets of insulation foam from local builders’ merchants and have some left over. My only worry is it has aluminium foil on both faces - would it still be suitable to use. I was going for a Warre-like 8” deep quilt with hessian bottom filled with dry moss (maybe with or without ventilation) until I saw your views on ventilation

 

[Erichalfbee]

Just a question JBM (again ). My wife’s an artist and I’ve just lined her storage shed (canvasses etc) with brand new 50mm thick 8’ x 4’ sheets of insulation foam from local builders’ merchants and have some left over. My only worry is it has aluminium foil on both faces - would it still be suitable to use. I was going for a Warre-like 8” deep quilt with hessian bottom filled with dry moss (maybe with or without ventilation) until I saw your views on ventilation

That’s what a lot of us use. Recticel Celotex and Kingspan are the common brands. It’s useful for insulated dummies as well but in that instance you have to cover the edges with aluminium tape.

 

[StephenT]

I did 3 roofs with 50mm kingspan last week. Left in the four wooden bars at the edge of the inside of the roof and just cut a matching section around the edge of the insulation and so it slotted in flush to the bottom of the roof. As the insulation came in 45cm width, I just used the bits I cut off to fill in the 3cm gap and then taped over the join. Hopefully my bees will appreciate their better insulated home.

 

[Swarm]

Multitude of useful applications ..

 

[StephenT]

Multitude of useful applications ..

For the Follower Board, does it take up the whole depth of the box and so if you used it on double brood, you could restrict the width of both boxes the same? Planning for beekeeping year 3 already.