is it to late to add mated queen ?

[prana vallabha]

is it to late to add a mated queen, as i can not find any sign of the virgin queen and it has been just over three weeks since she hatched . so i was going to introduce a mated queen and wondered if it was getting to late in the season .....

 

[Moggs]

It would be no later than waiting for your queen to become productive! That's not an unusually long time for your new queen. She could be in there, on a slow start. If you really want to try a replacement, a test frame would help to confirm if the hive is queenright. I would imagine that it is.

You wouldn't want to risk two queens in the same hive!

You still have enough brood cycle time to make a strong colony for winter, with a productive queen (assuming that it's not severely depleted) but I would take action ASAP.

 

[prana vallabha]

how to do a test a test frame...

sorry for sounding thick this is my first year , so how do you do a test frame ....... i have another hive with queen in laying perfectly as the other hive is where she swarmed from ...

 

[Tom Bick]

Test Frame - Get a frame from your other hive with eggs and shake off the bees and place it in the hive you think is Q- check it in 4-5 days later for QC's.

Warning double check the test frame that the queen is not on it before you shake the bees off.

Personally I would wait one more week before I would try the test frame as it will only disturb the bees again and three weeks is no time to be worried over the virgin queen and a good chance next week the hive full of eggs.

 

[Finman]

.
It is very necessary to test the hive, if it has a queen.

You may bye a laying queen at once. You do a 100% certain nuc to the queen and then settle it later into the hive.

Swarm queens are quite quick to lay, because they are couple days old when they leave the hive.

Your swarm bees are becoming old. They are all in foraging age.
The swarm hive neeeds 2 capped brood frames from big hive that they can easily rear brood.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Three weeks is nothing in our area I'd be a little bit more patient before thinking the worse

 

[Poly Hive]

I see no one has grasped the search.

It really does need sorting out I have to admit as I keep doing an advanced search on blogs rather than the forum. Can it be sorted?

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8643&highlight=test+frame

PH

 

[Hebeegeebee]

is it to late to add a mated queen, as i can not find any sign of the virgin queen and it has been just over three weeks since she hatched . so i was going to introduce a mated queen and wondered if it was getting to late in the season .....

If you have an arc of stores over an area of polished cells where you would expect to see brood, i.e. the middle of the brood box, then that's a pretty sure sign that virgin is in the hive. If the brood area is being filled by stores, then there is less chance of a queen being present although on occasions the bees will only clear a space for her to lay in once she has got mated; especially if there is no room in the hive due to lack of space or over feeding.

Polished cells DO look shiney in the sunlight.