Newly released queen

[Blue Spinnaker]

Burren - any luck?

I checked mine this morning (10 days since releasing Q) and no sign of her, and no eggs or larvae

I'm hoping her blue marking has fallen off and she hasn't yet started to lay or I'm back to square one again.

 

[burren]

Hi Blue Spinnaker
well...... checked 22nd + 27th july - nothing(day 16 after MATED q intro)
checked 1st aug - a few eggs, many cells with several eggs,all cells had been made much bigger, few larvae only, q not seen. ( bigger cells and several eggs in each, is a little worrying- but I know it can happen with q's starting to lay).
8th aug- checked again today, couple of capped drone cells, cells still big, larvae look big, still only small amounts, in v small areas and scattered, so might be indicating a drone laying queen. i hope not, as I have already had the problem of a laying worker is here and had to do a shake out, so really would love this hive to pick up now, as I rememeber how well the were doing earlier this summer, when it was expected that I might actually get some honey this year!
My Poor little nuc - cant see q in here either ( day 12 of MATED q intro) no eggs, the amount of bees is so small that I combined it with the hive today. I would give your q a little more time. I only "ran out of time" as the numbers were so low in nuc that there was no point in hanging on. Ii would have prefered two colonies, but would settle for one strong one to go through winter, hold on in there, its def a testing time.

 

[Blue Spinnaker]

I don't think I can get a test frame until the weekend anyway. I have 4 frames covered in beautifully behaved bees in there, it would be really disappointing to have to reunite them again with their original hive for the winter.

Could she have just upped and left? She wasn't clipped. Would I see a dead marked queen outside the hive if they had rejected her?

 

[burren]

no, no, not disappointing, if they were reunited and this made them stronger to survive the winter, thats good, they can always be split again next year, when conditions are more favourable. I may lose the only hive I now have, had them since june last year and they are lovely docile bees and they may have no hope at all due to drone laying queen etc etc, so 1 strong colony sounds great to me. Every so often it will feel like one step forwards and two steps backwards, but onwards and upwards, some things are out of our hands and some we can learn by to be better informed for next time. It is a learning curve after all!