how long for new queen to mate

[Pete D]

I had a look this weekend, its been 21 days since they swarmed. The swarm I hived has eggs and capped brood so the original queen is doing well. In the original hive which the swarm left from I left a newly emerged queen which I saw running about as I was reducing the queen cells down to 2, so removed them all and left her to it. 3 weeks on and no eggs / larvae but what I believed to be cleaned out polished cells and the brood box that was heavy with stores seems to have been transfered up into the super above QE. Gonna leave them aother 2 weeks and check again. Plenty of bees (brood and half) so fingers crossed she gets on with it. Been windy here and average temp about 17c for ages so probably a bit slow to mate. Patience is hard but I believe better than keep meddling .

 

[susbees]

.
Virgin from swarmed hive is rapid to lay because it stays at least 2 days inside the queen cell and wait for swarm exit. When they come out from cells, they are ready to jump on their wings.

When a new queen emerge, it is soft and clumsy. It is far from ability fly. What I have seen. That kind of queen may fly on third day.

I'm sure you're right Finman...I took down two swarm cells in a hive that had got very unbalanced with drones and then swarmed with loads of drones.

I took apart those two swarm cells, unbronzed. One had the expected entombed worker in a huge perfect cell which didn't seem to have the tell tale line near the tip, the other contained a huge hard bodied VQ, not the standard fluffy sort of new bee at all.

 

[fuzzysi]

i'm in a similar position to Pete above.

I had two swarms, both of which conveniently took up residence in bait hives and have evidence of the queen being active, but now the original hives are eggless and broodless but with open queen cells. I hope the bees have had the good sense to leave a queen behind in the old hives and i just need to be patient for a few weeks!

 

[Finman]

i'm in a similar position to Pete above.

I had two swarms, both of which conveniently took up residence in bait hives and have evidence of the queen being active, but now the original hives are eggless and broodless but with open queen cells. I hope the bees have had the good sense to leave a queen behind in the old hives and i just need to be patient for a few weeks!

join the swarms. You get better result than waiting a new queen.

Two box swarm is very goog. It occupyes and draw 20 frames.

 

[fuzzysi]

Both the swarms are already well established in their respective hives so i'm quite happy to leave them to it.

 

[Headnavigator]

.
Virgin from swarmed hive is rapid to lay because it stays at least 2 days inside the queen cell and wait for swarm exit. When they come out from cells, they are ready to jump on their wings.

When a new queen emerge, it is soft and clumsy. It is far from ability fly. What I have seen. That kind of queen may fly on third day.

Thanks Finman that makes sense and is something I didn't realise. All additions to my feeble store of knowledge are incredibly welcome!

 

[Dave /Oscroft]

Queen laying time

I had a look this weekend, its been 21 days since they swarmed. The swarm I hived has eggs and capped brood so the original queen is doing well. In the original hive which the swarm left from I left a newly emerged queen which I saw running about as I was reducing the queen cells down to 2, so removed them all and left her to it. 3 weeks on and no eggs / larvae but what I believed to be cleaned out polished cells and the brood box that was heavy with stores seems to have been transfered up into the super above QE. Gonna leave them aother 2 weeks and check again. Plenty of bees (brood and half) so fingers crossed she gets on with it. Been windy here and average temp about 17c for ages so probably a bit slow to mate. Patience is hard but I believe better than keep meddling .

Get this : beleve it or not ive got 9 colonies in the same state as the email above, only one out of ten colonies are laying at present after a massive swarming session early on this month. After doing two Demarees both bottom boxes had 8-10 q/cells !!!!!!!!!!! and yes I left only the original queen in when they were split!! and only one qc in the top box. I can only put it down to the early build up and two of the original colonies being Carniolans or swarmyolans as i beleve there called. Im also going to moniter them and hope there ok.

Dave W

 

[Onge]

I Have had one not start laying until 7 weeks after emerging!

I had to add a few frames of eggs in every now and then to check they were not queen less.

Normally 1 or 2 weeks.

Remember they NEVER read the books.

 

[Poly Hive]

You don't believe that was the original virgin do you?

PH

 

[Andre cardona]

now i see

 

[Finman]

and thanks to heaven, neither forums!

 

[Onge]

You don't believe that was the original virgin do you?

PH

Well there were no new Qcells and I was adding eggs most weeks to prevent them going laying workers.

Then suddenly eggs, and all was well

/shrug.

 

[Skyhook]

Well there were no new Qcells and I was adding eggs most weeks to prevent them going laying workers.

Then suddenly eggs, and all was well

/shrug.

I'm with PH on this one. I suspect the original virgin went stale and they raised a new one from the frames of eggs you gave them. Good job you did!