In a Q- hive......

[Jonnyl]

.....would bees be festooning, building wax? I split a hive 25 days ago and went in today to check on them and didnt see any brood nor did I expect to, but did see them wax building. I stole a frame of BIAS from my other hive and swapped it for an empty frame and intend to check again in 4 or 5 days. But I'm sitting here vexed. If they build new QC's then fine but I'm also thinking is there a finite time as to which workers stop/unable producing royal jelly? Thanks for any advice.

 

[enrico]

They may be making room for stores. They still bring in stores even if they are queenless.

 

[Poly Hive]

So if they started a queen cell from scratch on a 2 day old larvae (for the sake of discussion) it will take some 14 days to emergence give or take 12 hours or so. Then there is the time to mate and lay which up here can be 28 days. If not a few more. So........... bit early to be poking around no?

PH

 

[Jonnyl]

Agreed it was 3 or 4 days too soon but I'm away this weekend and the weather is to turn cooler for the next several days. My thoughts were if I added some BIAS then if they had no queen they may get to work a little earlier on making one and if they did have one then nothing lost. An insurance policy. I'm scared that they may be passed thr point of rearing a new queen after 4 or 5 weeks and their life cycle is ot course 6 so I took the risk of an early entry.