Missing Queen

markm2284 · Aug 21, 2011

Hi I need help please. I had a lovely colony of bees this year and the queen was clipped. Unfortunately being a beginner I missed the point when they decided to swarm and only knew this when I found the queen on the floor outside the hive. An experienced beekeeper told me to put her back so I did, but the colony killed her. I was then queenless, and I knew this because I placed a frame of young larve in and they started making queen cells. I then did not have the opportunity to attend my apiary for 2 weeks. Yesterday I checked on this hive and still there is no queen, no eggs, no larve, no sign of a queen eventhough they made numerous queen cells from the frame of brood. Could this simply be mating flight, or is there the possibility that all the new queens killed each other, or something else?? just starting to panic as the colony has significantly reduced in size and want to make sure they have a queen ASAP. Sorry for the waffle any help appreciated

Nightynight · Aug 21, 2011

what I would do
put another brood frame plus nursing bees to boost numbers in the colony in... in fact put 2 if you can (at this time of year plenty of bees in hives and not a lot to do).

Get a mated queen from a supplier ......quick

Others might wait a week, inspect and destroy all but 4-5 q-cells and let nature take its course, wait another week or so and destroy all but 1 or 2 q-cells and hope the bees know best

bees4u · Aug 21, 2011

I have a queen you can buy, PM me regards JM

enrico · Aug 21, 2011

I agree with nighty night.. Late in the year for no mated queen.

Busybee123 · Aug 21, 2011

First of all DON'T PANIC!

I think maybe you need to be careful here! If it's 2 weeks since you saw charged queen cells then you may well have one or more virgin queens in the colony which will be trying to mate. If you introduce a bought in mated queen, the bees may not accept her.

Virgin queens are small and hard to spot, but you should have at least one in the colony. I would suggest you contact one of the commercial queen breeders and reserve a queen for a couple of weeks time on the understanding that if your virgin queen gets mated and starts laying in the meantime you will be able to cancel your reservation.

Any one else think that this would be a sensible approach?

jenkinsbrynmair · Aug 21, 2011

Busybee123 said:
First of all DON'T PANIC!

I think maybe you need to be careful here! If it's 2 weeks since you saw charged queen cells then you may well have one or more virgin queens in the colony which will be trying to mate. If you introduce a bought in mated queen, the bees may not accept her.

Virgin queens are small and hard to spot, but you should have at least one in the colony. I would suggest you contact one of the commercial queen breeders and reserve a queen for a couple of weeks time on the understanding that if your virgin queen gets mated and starts laying in the meantime you will be able to cancel your reservation.

Any one else think that this would be a sensible approach?

New queen will just have emerged, so would not have had time to mate yet, putting in an new queen would just mean she would be killed. By all means reserve a queen but give your new queen a chance to mate, I know it's late in the year but there's still time