Frustrated and desperate

[bjosephd]

Two things to remember please.



No open brood does not in it's self denote a Q- hive. It does suggest that there is a queen in there of some sort most likely a virgin awaiting good weather, or she has mated and is taking the normal few days to start laying. So totally normal.



Laying workers are NOT that common. I think I have had one or two at the most since 1987 and running at least 20+ units per season. Unlikely that you have one.



PH

This one hive of mine has NO brood... NBIAS... no brood in any stages. Not even capped or emerging.

 

[Millet]

This one hive of mine has NO brood... NBIAS... no brood in any stages. Not even capped or emerging.

You will have a laying worker soon if there's no Virgin in there so for me you do not have much too loose waiting to see if the virgin gets mated.
i had a laying worker last year so they where shook out no other option really, i have also a laying worker this year but a test frame from another colony has stopped her laying for now as a Queen cell was drawn, if the 6th attempt this year to get a mated Queen fails that colony is history, and bought in Queens will be my only was forward through Swallows unless i learn how to instrumentally inseminate Queens ..

 

[Eyeman]

I currently have a hive that appears to have no laying ANYTHING. All brood hatched, no eggs, no nothing, but behaving as if a queen. I want to combine it, bit if there is a little useless unmated queen in there I daren't risk losing my nice laying queen due to an internal battle for management !

Get a test frame in ASAP and recheck in a few days to see if QC's or not. If queenless think about getting a mated queen to stand a chance of a honey harvest this season. If you leave them to raise their own queen then you'll wait 6 weeks before new workers come on board by which time the colony will have dwindled.

 

[bjosephd]

Get a test frame in ASAP and recheck in a few days to see if QC's or not. If queenless think about getting a mated queen to stand a chance of a honey harvest this season. If you leave them to raise their own queen then you'll wait 6 weeks before new workers come on board by which time the colony will have dwindled.

Indeed. There's a test frame in there since tuesday. But I have a feeling they aren't going to draw any QCs. Either way, I don't really want a queen from this stock, and so I am going to do some manoeuvres tomorrow in order to bleed the flying bees to the 'nuc' with the purchased queen who is destined to head the colony. I just daren't combine fully until I am SURE there is no queen in there. Should be easier once the fliers become absent.

 

[Millet]

Indeed. There's a test frame in there since tuesday. But I have a feeling they aren't going to draw any QCs. Either way, I don't really want a queen from this stock, and so I am going to do some manoeuvres tomorrow in order to bleed the flying bees to the 'nuc' with the purchased queen who is destined to head the colony. I just daren't combine fully until I am SURE there is no queen in there. Should be easier once the fliers become absent.

...??? .

 

[Poly Hive]

Look, think about the timings here.

You say no brood. I say and?

It can take up to four weeks to get a laying queen so look at what the test frame says, and BTW why have you waited so long to put one in?

As for the I don't want a queen from this lot err.. the test frame is from another colony so apart from the timing issue they would be raising a queen from another colony no?

Anyway good luck

PH

 

[bjosephd]

Ha. Sorry. I've confused everyone. They were a nasty colony that I had ordered a queen to requeen them with.

In the meantime they ended up looking like they were superseding and as they were so very horrid to inspect I shut them up for a while and left them to it.

I thought eventually I could find a their new superceded queen and remove her and introduce my purchased queen.

In the meantime my new queen arrived and I introduced her to a small nuc.

So good so far.

I opened them up to prepare for combining and found no brood and a good handful of hatched and or torn down queen cells.

They were much calmer though.

So at this stage I had no idea how many (virgin) queens might be in there so finding and removing one queen might not be sufficient for combination. So again closed up to wait for a queen to get mated and head the colony. Opened up a while later but still no laying, but colony much calmer as if they have a queen.

It had now been so long all brood had hatched. So this was when I finally put a test frame in. But if there is a virgin in there I'm pretty sure she will be long past her mating window.

...and today I am bleeding off flyers to the 'nuc' where the new purchased queen is... she needs staff!

And I'm aware the test frame will mean raising a queen from another colony, but I have a laying queen ready for them...! What I mean is that if the test frame says that there is a queen in there somewhere, I don't want her!

 

[Fusion_power]

Off with her head! Convoluted story of a hive BJD. I'm in process of getting rid of some bad tempered queens too. They are being replaced with queens raised from my best performing queen over the last 2 years.

 

[bjosephd]

Hi all

It's my first year beekeeping I'm not having a good week here's the story.i have a drone laying queen in one of my hives which I have 3 in total all nationals. I have tried to locate the queen to no avail over 3 weekends so made a decision to buy in a new queen which arrived today.

The plan was to make up a nuc from one of the other hives and introduce her there as per ged marshalls recommendations on his site, she is a buckfast.

My issue is again I cannot be sure if an unmarked queen is in the nuc.

Will the nuc I have made up today show emergency queen cell construction by tomorrow if its queenless?(hoping to introduce new queen to nuc tomorrow)

Please go easy on me I'm at that point where I've over read everything and cannot think straight

As I do not have a mentor near Ellesmere Port is their anyone that lives locally maybe that's available for help as the Mrs is going to kill me if I don't smile this week as I'm off work and spending more time with the bees than her

Feeling like a right lonely idiot here

Kind regards

Sorry I've somewhat hijacked your thread. Any luck with your lot yet?

 

[enrico]

I don't see the problem, you have already sorted it. Keep bleeding the fliers, when there are hardly any bees left in the stroppy hive find and kill the queen if there is one and the unite the rest with your new colony. All done.
E

 

[bjosephd]

I don't see the problem, you have already sorted it. Keep bleeding the fliers, when there are hardly any bees left in the stroppy hive find and kill the queen if there is one and the unite the rest with your new colony. All done.
E

Bingo.

Just wondering... do queens ever go on more than one mating flight?

Or is it always only ever one night (day) out on the town?

 

[Beefriendly]

They can go on several or just one, depends how successful each flight is. I think they keep going until the required volume of sperm has been taken on board.

 

[bjosephd]

Off with her head! Convoluted story of a hive BJD. I'm in process of getting rid of some bad tempered queens too. They are being replaced with queens raised from my best performing queen over the last 2 years.

Convoluted indeed! But people seemed confused of what exactly was going, so I filled in the gaps (bored them to tears).

Anyway... the process continues.

Happy breeding mr fusion... I hope to visit if I ever find myself in Alabama!

 

[bjosephd]

WELL I was just pulling out some plum suckers around the apiary... and I found a rather injured looking unmarked queen in the grass!

Missing a wing.

My theory is she is from the hive I was bleeeding bees from and she was a queen from that hive who somehow decided to go back to where her hive originally was, and got ejected?!

Is that possible?

I even put a queen excluder on the exit of the hive I was bleeding from to avoid just that! So that would mean she made it through the excluder to go on an additional mating flight.

Not sure if she is well enough to be reintroduced to the hive she MAY have come from. She is now marked. She is a very dark queen. She doesn't seem very perky.

Any ideas??

 

[colinc]

If the wing is gone they will kill her. The best you could hope for would be supercedure if she is laying but sounds like she is a virgin or just mated.


Time to pray?????


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[bjosephd]

I think, in theory, she is the queen I didn't want, or was hoping didn't exist. I have two other unmarked queens, but it. Makes no sense to be either of them as they are mates this year and heading up colonies already.

Anyway, the other half of the operation, from an external perspective at least, seems to have worked. The 'nuc' now has lots of flying bees. What internal politics may have gone on I don't know!

P.s. "If the wing is gone they will kill her" ? How does this work when it comes to clipping wings? Or is there a difference between clipped or missing?

 

[colinc]

Clipped is just the tip if it is gone at the base I am sure they will treat it like a missing back leg and replace her.


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[bjosephd]

Clipped is just the tip if it is gone at the base I am sure they will treat it like a missing back leg and replace her.


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Speaking of which her back leg doesn't work too well either. I think she'll be dead before I even finish supper.

What a mystery.

 

[Beefriendly]

The more you keep bees these "odd" experiences tell us we don't know a lot. Great thing about forums is we become aware of even more strange things happening than we have experienced ourselves.

 

[conn4000]

Well I have found her tonight so thanks to all the ladies and gents for posting......anyone got a new pair of working eyes they want to sell.......jeez going for a lie down