No eggs, Two Queen cells, no Queen?

[Busybee123]

Have had my two nucs for two weeks and up until today everything was going so well...

There are no eggs in one colony and there were two queen cells (with larvae and Royal Jelly in) on one frame. I destroyed the Queen cells and had a good look through the frames but could not see the Queen.

This is all very new to me, but as I see it that there can be two possibilities...

1. Colony was preparing to swarm and Queen has stopped laying and has slimmed down.

If this is the case will the Queen start laying again now that I have destroyed the queen cells?

2. The Queen is damaged/dead and the colony is Queenless and the Queen cells I found and destroyed were emergency queen cells.

If this is the case I could give the colony a frame with some eggs on from the other colony and see if they make more Queen cells.

I will have a look in a few days but if I still can't find the Queen (or eggs) what should I do?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[MrB]

i would give them a frame from the other colony to test if Q+/Q-
a bit hasty in destroying the Qcells though untill you knew the Q situation.

 

[Midland Beek]

One of those situations where you may not exactly know what your bees are doing. However, it is possible that the nuc was formed around a new queen and for some reason the bees have found her unsatisfactory, hence the queen cells and the efforts at replacing her. This is called supersedure, and in a strong and populous colony may lead to swarming ... but perhaps not in a newly established nuc.

In destroying those queen cells you may have made your bees hopelessly queenless, ie, put them in the position of not being able to get themselves queenright again.

 

[enrico]

please don't think I am being rude but you say you are knew to this. I personally am surprised that there are NO eggs. Are you confident that you would be able to identify an egg? Is there any brood at all?
If you are right and there are NO eggs at all, then take a frame from the other box with developed eggs in the centre of the frame and scrape off about half an inch of wax from under the eggs back to the foundation. Where you scrape the wax the eggs in the cells above the scraping will be developed as QCells (Hopefully)
My words of caution would be that you can mess around too early so my real advise is to get someone with some experience to have a quick look for queen and eggs. Trying to help you as best as possible
E

 

[tkwinston4]

scrape off about half an inch of wax from under the eggs back to the foundation. Where you scrape the wax the eggs in the cells above the scraping will be developed as QCells (Hopefully)
E

Not heard this before; is it common practice?

 

[EdNewman]

please don't think I am being rude but you say you are knew to this. I personally am surprised that there are NO eggs. Are you confident that you would be able to identify an egg? Is there any brood at all?
If you are right and there are NO eggs at all, then take a frame from the other box with developed eggs in the centre of the frame and scrape off about half an inch of wax from under the eggs back to the foundation. Where you scrape the wax the eggs in the cells above the scraping will be developed as QCells (Hopefully)
My words of caution would be that you can mess around too early so my real advise is to get someone with some experience to have a quick look for queen and eggs. Trying to help you as best as possible
E

One of my hive did something similar, AS hive with a virgin queen, 3 weeks later it now has a single queen cell and no eggs or brood (verified by someone who knows what they are doing (ie not me!)). I have given up trying to figure out what my bees are doing, so I am going to totally leave them alone for two weeks and see what happens to that queen cell.

Ed

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Adding a frame of brood with eggs to the possibly queenless colony will do them no harm. If there is a queen, then no queencells will be produced. If there is no queen you'll know soon enough by the production of queencells; then check back for further advice.

Don't worry - you have learned two things
1)Don't destroy before you are ABSOLUTELY sure (Many more should learn by this example).

2)The advantages of having two colonies.

I assume tkwinston4 is referring to the Miller Method.

 

[oliver90owner]

Just two weeks in?

If appropriate, contact your supplier. Unless you have done anything to cause this it may be that they are not wanting that queen as head of the colony - and you may have paid good money, even a premium, for a nuc with a specific queen line.
An unproven queen with unrelated workers/brood is not a good nuc IMO.

This may not be the case, but if it is....

Regards, RAB

 

[Busybee123]

Thanks everyone for the replies and your advice. I will try and answer your questions as best I can.

i would give them a frame from the other colony to test if Q+/Q-
a bit hasty in destroying the Qcells though untill you knew the Q situation.

When I could not find eggs, but found the Queen cells I destroyed them because I thought initially they must be emergency cells, and that the colony was queenless. To be honest I did not expect to find Queen cells and I paniced - I wanted to buy some time and stop the colony from swarming.

One of those situations where you may not exactly know what your bees are doing. However, it is possible that the nuc was formed around a new queen and for some reason the bees have found her unsatisfactory, hence the queen cells and the efforts at replacing her. This is called supersedure, and in a strong and populous colony may lead to swarming ... but perhaps not in a newly established nuc....

As I understand it the Queen was/is about 1 year old, and was laying well up until this inspection. I saw plenty of eggs last Thursday (5 days ago) when I had a look. I wonder maybe if I killed/damaged the Queen by accident during that inspection?

please don't think I am being rude but you say you are knew to this. I personally am surprised that there are NO eggs. Are you confident that you would be able to identify an egg? Is there any brood at all?...

Yes, I'm confident that I can identify eggs, and there were none. Plenty of larvae and sealed brood though.

Adding a frame of brood with eggs to the possibly queenless colony will do them no harm. If there is a queen, then no queencells will be produced. If there is no queen you'll know soon enough by the production of queencells; then check back for further advice.

That's what I intend to do. If they make Queen cells on the donated frame of eggs, would that prove that they are queenless?

And would this be an acceptable way of introducing another queen (although it would take a few weeks for queen to hatch and get mated)?

If appropriate, contact your supplier. Unless you have done anything to cause this it may be that they are not wanting that queen as head of the colony - and you may have paid good money, even a premium, for a nuc with a specific queen line.
An unproven queen with unrelated workers/brood is not a good nuc IMO.

This may not be the case, but if it is....

I think the nuc was good - it came from a reputable source, and as I mentioned above, the Queen was about a year old and everything looked fine up until today.

My records show the following if it helps to determine what is going on:

Inspection Sunday 8th May: Eggs, Larvae and Sealed Brood, 2 Queen cups (empty) removed. Q not seen.

Inspection Thursday 12th May: Eggs, Larvae and Sealed Brood. Q not seen.

Inspection Tuesday 17th May: Larvae and Sealed Brood, but no eggs. Two Queen Cells destroyed. Q not seen.

Weather permitting I will have a nother look in a few days.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

BB, to answer your question, yes, if queencells are produced, then that tells us the colony is queenless. If there is a queen there you may well see polished cells in the middle of the brood area where the queen would usually lay.

I had a similar problem the other way around. I had a couple of overwintered nucs available and the day the buyer was due to come I had a look see to check all was OK. One was good, the other didn't have a queen which was there a week before. The colony ws very full and I wondered if this ws part of the problem. However....

This seems to be part of a (modern) pattern of poor mating or odd behaviour where queens go missing or stop laying and there are no queencells.

 

[Midland Beek]

Well, BusyBee, you seem to be a pretty able new beek who has as good a feel as anyone as to what this colony is doing.

It may be queenless. In destroying those queen cells you may have prevented them from getting queenright. Lesson learnt in that respect.

If you are sure there are no eggs and if you have been unable to find a queen, a test frame taken from your other stock will put you straight. Any emergency queen cells raised on this frame will be easy to spot.

Find emergency queen cells on your test frame and you can do one of three things:-

1/ Destroy those emergency queen cells thus making them hopelessly queenless again, and then introduce new queen.

2/ Give them their chance with the emergency queen cells. (Not what I would do).

3/ Destroy those emergency queen cells thus making them hopelessly queenless again, and then unite to your queenright stock.

 

[Busybee123]

Well, BusyBee, you seem to be a pretty able new beek who has as good a feel as anyone as to what this colony is doing..

I don't know about that! I feel like I'm walking blindfolded through a minefield in the dark! It makes you feel pretty humble when you are out manoeuvred by a bee.

Surely if my colony was queen-less then the queen cells I destroyed were emergency cells anyway and not really worth keeping?

If my colony is queen-less then my preferred option would be option 1, i.e to requeen by introducing a new queen (assuming I can get hold of one).

If the queen is still there but has stopped laying in preparation for swarming (which i hope is the case) what will happen now?

Will she start laying again and will I possibly see more queen cells when I go back in a few days?

 

[Busybee123]

UPDATE - More Queen Cells!

Still no eggs, no queen, no very young larvae. I am Queenless.

I had a quick look at my colony again, and found more Queen Cells - 3 this time - one small one and two fairly large ones - beautifully drawn out side by side in the centre of one of the frames with royal jelly and larvae in. I destroyed the small one and left the two large ones.

The queen cells are really close together on the same frame - if they had been on different frames I would have been tempted to split the colony with one QC in each half, but I can't.

Is it ok to leave both queen cells?

Or should I destroy one and leave only one to develop?

Reading Ted Hooper's book, he talks about "pulling" queens just before they are due to emerge - not really sure what this achieves. Anyone any experience of this?

Perhaps it would be better to just let them get on with it and have a look in about a month to see if there is a new Queen laying.

 

[Busybee123]

FURTHER UPDATE....

Story so far:

Tuesday : Found Queen cells, destroyed them

Friday : Found more Queen cells, left two largest (see previous post)

Today (Sunday) : Queen cells now sealed (see photo)

Should I leave both Queen Cells?

Virgin queens should emerge next Sunday/Monday. Should I just leave them alone now to sort themselves out?

What about "pulling" the queens and splitting the colony putting one virgin queen in each?

 

[oliver90owner]

A day or so before they emerge, the tips of the queen cells turn darker - some say pinkish, but I can't see that colour. At that point they are said to be ripe. You should be able to check that both are viable. At that point you might be able to carefully remove one cell, to emerge elsewhere, but they are very close together. Neither appears to be a particularly large cell.

RAB

 

[Busybee123]

A day or so before they emerge, the tips of the queen cells turn darker - some say pinkish, but I can't see that colour. At that point they are said to be ripe. You should be able to check that both are viable. At that point you might be able to carefully remove one cell, to emerge elsewhere, but they are very close together. Neither appears to be a particularly large cell.

RAB

Thanks Rab, I'll have a look in next weekend if the weather is ok. I was really annoyed at losing the queen from this colony because it was doing really well, but now I'm just trying to learn as much as I can by the whole experience, and I may well have to requeen later in the year if the new Queen(s) are not up to scratch.

At the moment the colony is over 7 or 8 frames, so I wondered if I had the opportunity to split the colony if it would be worth trying to do so. They should have time to build up before the winter and if it all goes pear shaped I can reunite them and requeen.

 

[drstitson]

"When I could not find eggs, but found the Queen cells I destroyed them because I thought initially they must be emergency cells, and that the colony was queenless"

i know you panicked but destroying the only "natural" means of becoming queen right again was a bizarre step. one learns...

the fact that the bees have material to produce new (uncapped) queen cells over a 5 day period suggests that there MUST have been eggs present on tuesday.

 

[oliver90owner]

I might split off a small nuc and nurture it for the rest of the summer and see how it progresses. One queen could be a 'nasty' and the other a 'pussy cat', so you have a choice if things need sorting. I would not split that colony, if only on eight frames, if you were wanting some honey harvest at all. Any decent productive colony should not be able to be condensed into a single box at this time of the season (this year!).

RAB

 

[Busybee123]

"When I could not find eggs, but found the Queen cells I destroyed them because I thought initially they must be emergency cells, and that the colony was queenless"

i know you panicked but destroying the only "natural" means of becoming queen right again was a bizarre step. one learns...

the fact that the bees have material to produce new (uncapped) queen cells over a 5 day period suggests that there MUST have been eggs present on tuesday.

What can I say - it is a steep learning curve! My immediate reaction was OMG, they are going to swarm! I was not thinking straight....I have learned my lesson.

Anyway, I agree, there must have been a few eggs around, or at least newly hatched larvae, on Tuesday when i destroyed the Queen cells. The uncapped queen cells I saw on Friday were more advanced than the ones I destroyed on Tuesday.

Thinking back, I must have lost the queen last Sunday. This colony was doing really well, much better than my other one, and I opened up the hive last Sunday and removed a frame of brood to give to the other colony. I shook the bees of the frame into the hive and then pushed the frames back together - which is when I reckon I either lost or squashed the queen.

The weather has been so bad I've been taking any chance I can to have a look when I get a warm sunny afternoon, which is why I looked in on them on Tuesday, but wastotally baffled by what I found.

 

[Busybee123]

I might split off a small nuc and nurture it for the rest of the summer and see how it progresses. One queen could be a 'nasty' and the other a 'pussy cat', so you have a choice if things need sorting. I would not split that colony, if only on eight frames, if you were wanting some honey harvest at all. Any decent productive colony should not be able to be condensed into a single box at this time of the season (this year!).

RAB

I'm not expecting a honey harvest from this colony this year - because of when I lost the queen it will be way down in numbers of foragers in July when (hopefully) we might get some good weather and a good flow of nectar.

Thanks for the advice - at least I have a few days to think about what to do before the virgins emerge.