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Lost my queen

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Gail

New Bee
Joined
Dec 30, 2019
Messages
2
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Location
Bournemouth
Hive Type
None
Lost my queen on a 50,000 strong hive, can anyone help.
based in Bournemouth.
 
Also how do you know it's 50K strong, is it wall to wall brood & what type of box ?
 
Stolen or escaped for a better life?
 
Hi Gail. It’s important whoever sends you a queen that you have indeed lost her. Her replacement will meet a certain death otherwise. What happened?

Totally agree with this of course.

Surprised with apparent lack of availability though having read so many posts saying that overwintered queens are the solution to early supply in the UK. Maybe a lot of people have been offering theoretical lectures?
 
Lost my queen on a 50,000 strong hive, can anyone help.
based in Bournemouth.
Hi Gail. I may be able to help with a queen cell if you need one. I have done some splits so will probably have some spare. PS I'm in Poole.
 
Lost my queen on a 50,000 strong hive, can anyone help.
based in Bournemouth.
Get a frame of brood with eggs and drop in, this will confirm 1 if you have lost the queen, 2 if you have they can make their own replacement, their are drones about now so should be able to get mated. Put liquid feed on the top to give them a good nectar flow and i would destroy all but two cells in about a week to prevent swarming or leave until sealed and then harvest into mating nucs in case main queen does not mate.
 
Gail hasn’t been on since her original post. She was in a conversation immediately afterwards so likely she is sorted. Just hope her diagnosis is correct.
 
Hi Gail. I may be able to help with a queen cell if you need one. I have done some splits so will probably have some spare. PS I'm in Poole.
Splits in April!
keep us updated as to how that goes please
 
Hi Gail. I may be able to help with a queen cell if you need one. I have done some splits so will probably have some spare. PS I'm in Poole.
Thats pretty early for some walk away splits you’ll be lucky to get them mated and even luckier if they last the season. I was thinking about my first grafts about 20th of the month but we’ll see what the weather brings and judge accordingly.
 
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Gail hasn’t been on since her original post. She was in a conversation immediately afterwards so likely she is sorted. Just hope her diagnosis is correct.
Should we care ? People make one post asking for help and then disappear into the ether never to be seen again ....
 
Splits in April! - JBM, I think you missed out the ‘early’ in that remark!! She may get lucky as she is in the far south. But I haven’t yet seen (m)any reports of swarming.
I'm about as far south as you can get without getting your feet wet .... snowing today ! (not proper snow just a few flakes but it was cold). No sign of swarms at all yet ,,, far too early to do walk away splits.
 
Splits in April! - JBM, I think you missed out the ‘early’ in that remark!! She may get lucky as she is in the far south. But I haven’t yet seen (m)any reports of swarming.
Surely it depends on size of the colony and the type of split. Queen and mixture of flyers and others in a split and only bias and similar (no QCs) in the other half means that it will be at least 3 weeks from now for drones to become randy? Time enough without a significant risk of failure especially as the weather is about to turn good again? Virgin Qs often take their time too?
 
I'm just a few miles along the coast from where the splits have been done. Past experience has taught me that early may is plenty early enough for Queen rearing, in fact, mid May is probably even better. As Ian123 said, even if they manage to mate (with what will be a very limited gene pool) long term they probably won't be the best bet.
 
Surely it depends on size of the colony and the type of split. Queen and mixture of flyers and others in a split and only bias and similar (no QCs) in the other half means that it will be at least 3 weeks from now for drones to become randy? Time enough without a significant risk of failure especially as the weather is about to turn good again? Virgin Qs often take their time too?
Not really anything to do with size of colony, could be a mini could be full size. It’s going to be down with what resultant queens mate with. I’ve had new drones in some hives since beginning of March but not in any numbers to get exited about or think about any queen rearing. I’ve got some mated in April before on a good year it’s fine, others I’ve pretty much lost the lot by the end of the season if you even got them mated.
 

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