Help required with potential queenless colony

[jprickard]

I am new to beekeeping, taking a nuc from Thornes at the end of May. Up until last week (Tuesday) all was going well until I noticed a number of queen swarm cells at the bottom of the cells. I spoke to Thornes who told me to break them down which I did on Wednesday
There was also shorty after a mass of bees on the outside of the hive although when I looked later the mass had gone. There was no evidence of a swarm nearby and I didn't notice a load of bees missing from the colony so wasn't convinced that they had swarmed.

Last night on the weekly inspection I could only see very few unsealed brood cells, plenty of empty brood cells and a number of emergency queen cells in the middle of the brood nest – likely I think is that the queen has left or died. In fact there are around 12 emergency cells.

What are my next steps – wait and see what happens to the queen cells, or do I destroy some of them.

At what point do I need to consider another option for example getting a new Queen from somewhere.

I would really appreciate any advice here.

 

[RoseCottage]

Good news and bad news...

Good:
You are about to learn new aspects of your hobby.
You have all the means to come through in your hive already.

Bad
Probably have lost your queen through some misfortune or swarming. Although if it was a Thor nes nuc I wouldn't have thought that she would have swarmed in her first year with you unless she was severely space restricted. I would have expected her to be a 1st year queen and to be building up through this summer.

Have a good look at your remaining queen cells. Are they capped? Are they in the middle of the frames? Can you see larvae and white royal jelly in any? If capped I would reduce down to one on a single frame. Any more and you run the risk of losing a swarm or caste when the first new queen hatches. If still unsealed look for one with the youngest larvae and remove the rest when its capped. You may find placing a drawing pin nearby will help you track the queen cell.

Patience is now key. There should be no need to buy another queen. If you just have one colony now is also the time to make friends with another local beek. If it all goes wrong, which it shouldn't, you can introduce a frame of eggs/larvae taken from their hive and recover your colony again. It will also benefit you to have a more experienced person take a look (i'd start with my local association).

The queen cell takes 9 days to capping and 16 until she emerges. Can you be any more accurate about your cell timings?

I would also have another word with thor nes as you say you have only had the colony about 2 weeks. They should have inspected it prior to sending it to you to ensure a balance of brood, stores, and space. If your queen has died then they may wish to address this with a replacement.

Let us know how you progress,
All the best,
Sam

 

[oliver90owner]

Go back to Th8rne if you are confident you have not caused the problem.
You paid a very hefty price for your bees.

While not so very common, it does happen that the bees don't like their queen and supercede. If this is thwarted the bees may well become more aggressive in their actions and produce swarm cells. Usully happens when the queen is not the mother of most of the workers. Some nucs are thrown together like that. Not saying that is the case here, but simply giving an example of when it can happen.

If the queen has left with half the bees, you no longer have a decent sized nuc!

In a nushell; this should not happen.

RAB

 

[huntsman666]

I notice under 'Main type of hive' you say 'None.' Neither did you mention you put the bees into a full size hive on arrival. You did mention a hive but are you thinking the nuc is a hive? Sorry to ask what seems silly questions.

So, Have you kept them in the nuc? If you did, that alone would have caused them to prepare to swarm.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I assume you have hived the nuc so space has not been restricted. I also assume the queen wasn't clipped which is a shame. For how many weeks was she laying?

I only sell nucs that have had a queen laying for at least 3 weeks so her own brood has started to emerge and the laying pattern can be checked. (Solid with very few holes). This is a good way of checking the queen and her capabilities although she could still be superceded!


You should not break down queencells unless you know there is a laying queen present (eggs) otherwise you make BIG problems. If your supplier didn't ask about the presence of the queen and eggs, they should have done. The fact that there are apparently emergency queencells would tell me that the queen was not working when you broke the cells down. (Are you sure they are emergency ones).

General advice is to cut down to 1 open queencell where you can see the larva in a pool of royal jelly. However in this case Sam's advice is sound IMO.

Welcome to the world of beekeeping!

 

[jprickard]

Thanks for your reply - the bees were delivered in a six frame travelling box and were transferred to a national full brood box the next day.

 

[jprickard]

Thanks for your quick response Sam, I will follow your advice and let you know the outcome. I have since spoken to Th***es and they tell me that this was likely last years queen (they couldn't be sure!) and that the nuc was very likely to swarm :-(

 

[RoseCottage]

I think that Tho rnes response falls somewhat short of their usual high standards. It is only a fortnight or therabouts and I would go back and kick a bit harder.

If the queen was last years (Tho rnes usually identify the queen with a coloured paint blob on the Thorax - blue last year and white this year) and they thought she was liable to swarm then she should have come with a swarm warning for you. However, I doubt that they would/should be selling bees on the cusp of swarming.

If you transferred over to a new hive and gave them some additional foundation then I cannot see why the colony would feel the urge to leave. No need really. Even if you had all 5 frames (typical thor nes Nuc) full of brood and stores when you moved them to a new national with foundation for 6 more frames I would imagine the last thing on their mind is swarming.

So the supersedure (bee initiated replacement an unhealthy queen with a new healthy queen) scenario is more likely and in this case I would feel that I had a sensible basis to complain after only a fortnight of ownership that I had been sold a dud.

I have had 2 Nucs from them and never had a problem like yours.

So I would complain and ask them for a better explanation of what they sold you (I believe they need to keep records) and tell them that you could still come back for a replacement if your own queen rearing efforts struggle. You should still be fine btw and to be honest unless you have a disaster I would forget about Tho rnes and learn a lesson. Still get your complaint in early so you have a leg to stand on later.

All the best,
Sam.

 

[oliver90owner]

I would think all their nucs are out-sourced on contract and simply passed onto the customer with a heavy mark-up. They may be trying to tell you that yours is the only one that has done this, but there may well be others in the same boat, or the supplier is tight on available supply (or squeezed too much by the contract)!

It doesn't make any difference. Your small colony should be a small, self-contained, developing colony, nothing else.

RAB

 

[jprickard]

sam - thank you...

Th***s have come back saying they will send me a newreplacement queen with instructions of how to introduce her. I have taken them up on their kind offer.

Should I now look to split the colony and try to keep some of the current queen cells.

I was thinking of taking frame with one cell and putting it into another box, and then breaking down the rest and introducing the new queen into the origibnal - would that work?

 

[susbees]

If still unsealed look for one with the youngest larvae and remove the rest when its capped.

The usual advice is to leave one uncapped cell with plenty royal jelly and a large larva and remove the rest.

I came across a young couple the other day at a certain bee supply yard (not Thornes) who had been sold a nuc from someone I know of with last year's queen and had multiple QCs to about the same timescale as this...May nuc. They had received less than helpful advice from this person and were fervently inspecting every five days in the hope the problem would go away on its own as not wanting to AS something as small as a nuc...

 

[susbees]

sam - thank you...

Th***s have come back saying they will send me a newreplacement queen with instructions of how to introduce her. I have taken them up on their kind offer.

Should I now look to split the colony and try to keep some of the current queen cells.

I was thinking of taking frame with one cell and putting it into another box, and then breaking down the rest and introducing the new queen into the origibnal - would that work?

How many frames have been drawn? How many frames of brood? If you've lost a prime swarm (relative to the size of the colony) you have effectively done a split already so unlikely to be enough bees I'd have thought.

 

[RoseCottage]

JP,
I still recommend that you make contact with someone local as this may still be of great use. Queen introduction can appear a little hit and miss I'm afraid (I also recommend searching/reading a few threads on Q introduction). I hear that queens can often rejected by the colony if they are not the same breed.

Taking your time is very important. I am certainly no expert as I have only tried once and this resulted in her death.

Take the Tho rnes offer but also find a more experienced mentor (perhaps one who has a lot of queen introduction experience).

Personally, I will always try to rear my own rather than take the introduction route if I can. I now have 5 hives and this is hopefully my insurance.

Susbees is right on the queen cell but I was also trying to advise on taking the youngest as others have stated that this gives you the best chance to successfully recover. I have done this a few times now and have not failed yet.

If you make friends with a local beek I am just wondering whether this would give you the opportunity to start the new Th ornes queen in a Nuc. The two potential benefits are:

1. If your queen cell rearing goes well you could end up with two colonies

2. If your own queen cell rearing fails you could combine the queen Nuc and your colony with Newspaper and this people report is often a safer introduction path. Again threads exist on the forum in the last month on the subject.

To do this you will obviously need some frames of brood and house bees along with your queen - so a friendly local beek may be able to help you out.

Just thinking out loud...

all the best,
Sam