from best hive to worst hive in 10 days?

[beekake]

I inspected my 'best' colony yesterday, 10 days on from last time, when it had 9 frames of BIAS with loads of eggs (and virtually no drone) and some frames that were edge to edge sealed worker brood, had two near full supers, plus a third filling (I've alrady taken two OSR supers). There have been no signs of swarm preparation in this colony at all this year, not even a play cup. Every week I noted 'Perfect colony' in my notes.

So I was surprised yesterday when I could hardly find eggs, and when I did they were often double, with some on the wall of cells, laid in a fairly patchy manner. THere was a reasonable amount of unsealed brood (but much less than expected), with a lot of it seeming to be drone. Much of the sealed brood had emerged with no sign of replacement. Bees were reasonably happy for this time of year and, for the first time, I found evidence of them building queen cells. However, none had eggs in or were charged with Royal Jelly. THere were no emergency cells or any other sign of swarm cells. The queens in my other colonies have continued to lay as normal, so I don't think there is a 'too hot to lay' effect going on here (besides which, the temp has only been ~22°C here at most over the last week or so).

My diagnosis is that the queen has gone (dead/ swarmed/ whatever) and been replaced with laying workers (given the sudden arrival of a lot of drone brood, and the patchy/ poor laying), but perhaps I have rushed into this conclusion...I just don't get why there were no signs of them trying to replace the queen if she was failing. Given that, my only option seems to be to shake out the bees (it's a big colony) because the chances of getting this one requeened successfully and with enough young bees in time for winter preparations seem slim, and there is no point wasting a lot of effort to cull it in spring anyway. I haven't time to mess about. But shaking out seems very drastic and would be a great shame...I was hoping to breed from this queen next year (she hatched last year, so was still young enough).

Any thoughts on my logic/ identified course of action? Anyone with similar experiences?

 

[JEP]

You won't have laying workers that quickly, it just sounds like the queen is failing. Just leave them alone and they will probably superseed her. No effort involved in that. The other option is to find and kill the old queen and buy a repalcement.

 

[Finman]

Any thoughts on my logic/ identified course of action? Anyone with similar experiences?

Yes, I have. A swarm may leave and they leave only eggs into queen cups.

Rape is dangerous. Another dangerous is raspberry. It gives even more yield.

 

[enrico]

You are over thinking too soon! Please be patient would be my advice. Clearly the queen has gone off lay for whatever reason. Most of the worker brood has emerged leaving you with more than the comparable amount of drone cells left to emerge.
My advice to you is that .... This happens....
The problem is now, do you have a queen or not. My gut reaction says yes, but if not then there is still hope that you will get queen cells from the remains. I think it is far too early to be shaking hives out! Let them make their own decisions. I would!
E

 

[Tom Bick]

Your post reads very similar to one of my hives this year. I had obviously missed HRH had stopped laying on a couple of previous inspections she was spotted and plenty of brood, a big double brood hive and all looked good. Only to open the hive and then spot the obvious only emerging brood queen fallen from the perch and the start of laying workers in the supers?? A test frame one week later proved nothing and more evidence of laying workers this time in the bb slightly increased this time. Fortunately I had a spare queen in a nuc and combined her with the hive and all is now well and the spare queen is a cracker everyone should raise spare queens each year.

This hive is in an apiary that has had a bit of trouble with nosema and I suspect the queen was affected by this and went of lay and the bees for some reason also failed to notice this and when they did it was too late. This hive had tested positive with low levels of nosema and I was going to monitor it and treat if necessary after the supers removed. I did suspect supersedure but found no evidence for this and was a bit surprised it turned laying workers so fast.

It seems to me that plenty of confusion and various remedies exist over how to deal with laying workers and for me as it was a spare queen one I could gamble with, she was well surrounded by her bees and I guessed plenty of time for the bees to sort themselves out. One thing I would not have fancied tipping that amount of bees out on the floor it would have caused pandemonium.

A test frame is the first thing to try.

 

[Chris B]

Take away the supers and feed them a gallon of syrup, along with your other hives at the same time. Things will probably look quite different a week after that.
Some queens go off lay at the end of a flow. It is also possible she's failing but if they make supersedure cells it's your ideal opportunity to split up the colony with a cell in each, thus using your queen as a breeder on a small scale.

 

[Bryanthebee]

look had problem with no laying queens last year, previose post.
dont wait for it to happen or it will be to late, have a good look to find queen must look and find here, failing this she may be gone, shake out infront of hive onto a sheet leading to entrance. place new queen in after checking all frames are clear of queen cells ,bee`s are now on the floor, let them get on with it they will entre find a new queen in house in a cage, release here by letting bees eat the fondant away after a week should bee ok. done this late last year worked fine for me. but bee s will be bee`s.
I have shaken bee`s out a few time and laying works never carry on after there is a new queen, or some say it does but the queen has been accepted. but if nothing else dont waste. time combine. might be worth trying.

 

[enrico]

Well! You've got some varied answers here. Whatever you do let us know what the outcome was, it is interesting to see who was right sometimes,
E

 

[beekake]

Well, I'm more optimistic now than I was at the start of the day. I'll be checking again in a week's time when I take the honey off for extraction. If there is no sign of a change, I'll look for HM and remove her if found. I have a mating nuc that should soon yield a laying queen (she hatched a couple of weeks ago, and the workers are bringing in pollen now in preparation for brood, although no sign of eggs yet). If it is laying workers...I might just shake them out as per bryan's suggestion and see what happens.

 

[beekake]

Well, on inspection this week (drum roll), it was a bit better than last. It wasn't all drone brood as i had feared and, while the frames were light, there was more brood and eggs than last week and not so many double eggs. So I am not longer as depressed as I was! Strangely, the exact same thing has happened in another colony in the apiary. Fine last week with 7 frames of brood, to queen completely off lay this week.

 

[enrico]

Thanks for the info, it is so easy to believe that things are going wrong when actually they are just... Not going quite right! .... Patience is a real virtue in thus game. Pleased for you
E

 

[Sandbee79]

Don't do it.

Sometimes the best course of action is no action at least for now. Be Patient.
I found with mine recently they came to a dead stop while the weather changed.Now its warmed up again they're out full on.