No Eggs, No Queen, No Clue!

[Chilterns Bee]

My new queen this season (one made by the colony because it swarmed). Has been laying well. Nectar flow has been good locally (Chilterns), although the last week has been raining.

About three weeks ago I removed honey. At that time I saw the queen, but I must admit that I didn't check the eggs/brood situation thoroughly.

Two weeks ago I saw that there were no eggs, not much brood and couldn't see the queen.

I took a couple of frames from another hive which had eggs and brood and put it in the problem hive. A week later, brood growing well, but no queen cells.

Earlier this week I fed them about 2.5l of sugar solution.

Today I put another frame of eggs/brood in the box in the hope they'll turn some of these into queen cells.

Can't figure out why there were no eggs after, I presume, the queen died or swarmed. Any thoughts?

Am I doing the right thing by introducing frames from my other hive?

I'm flummoxed. There's enough time to get a new queen to mate hopefully because the season runs quite late locally (nectar flow up to November in two winters of beekeeping I've had).

Thanks for any advice.

 

[XYZ]

Wild guess here but if they're not doing anything with the test frames could it just be you have a queen and she's taking a break?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Brood break - many queens go off lay for a while around this time of the year

 

[Erichalfbee]

All those brood frames point to a queen in residence
Chill.

 

[Swarm]

And stop weakening your other colony.

 

[Chilterns Bee]

Thanks!

Great advice thank you all. I’ll hang in there and see what happens.

 

[chipper]

Regular occurrence with some strains...
Queens stop laying when the summer flow ends..
Should begin again once the Ivy begins...
You can restart her laying with alittle regular feeding..

 

[Bear]

I would say queenright but she’s having a break. I wouldn’t worry as long as you over winter them. Been keeping bees for 10years plus.

 

[Bear]

No pollen no queen laying.

 

[Chilterns Bee]

No pollen no queen laying.

That's interesting thanks. There are two frames almost completely filled with pollen. But it might be that wasn't enough honey (maybe I took too much) and so with feeding them this might kick start her.

I'll let you know.

In the meantime I hope she enjoys her staycation!

 

[Hebeegeebee]

There's a fair chance of supercedure - you didn't see a cell - so there's a young queen there waiting to mate. It doesn't matter that the queen was this seasons.

 

[Millet]

I have a colony here with a bought in 2019 Queen..she has plenty of space to lay but on inspection on Sunday not a single egg or larvae was spotted..