no queen

[ferretgirl]

I seem to be doomed with bee keeping!

Things aren't going right for me guys!

I followed ur advice when i picked up my 6 frame nuc. I put the box in place of the hive, opened the hole and left it for 2days to settle into life in disley! I then put the hive back in its place and put the frames in the hive in exactly the same order as they were in the nuc, didn't fuss with them, just put them in and added 5 new frames to take up the space!

A few days later i went in and moved a couple of frames to change places with new frames as recommended by someone to encourage them to start spreading out!

I then went back last tuesday to check them! Took with me a pint of sugar syrup in a feeder! Checked each frame, they hadn't done anything with the new frames and worse still, no evidence of the queen! No eggs or anything! Then i see queen cells......opened! Ok i thought, nothing major, they've swarmed, unlucky but not the end of the world! I know a new queen can take a while till she starts laying, so i'll leave them for a bit whilst keeping my fingers crossed!

Went back today, all syrup gone and they're making their way through the 2frames of honey that came with them!
I looked for evidence of queen and thought i'd found it when i saw a few eggs and a few grubs, then my heart sunk when i realised it's probably just a worker laying as the grubs cell was drawn out slightly making me think it's a drone cell! And there literally were only a few grubs and a few eggs!

Oh, and they still haven't done anything with the new frames!

So, what are ur expert thoughts? Do i leave it a little longer and hope there's a virgin queen somewhere or should i buy a new queen?

Thanks in advance for reading this, i'm sorry it was so long!

 

[Grub]

Poor you I have been keeping a check on your threads , personaly I would of left your frames as they were, not seperating them atall with new frames (kept them as a whole unit) I would leave alone as you have found eggs can somone from your association come and check or get in touch with the bee inspector to check them over for you when I was new to this I always worried but majority of the time the bees sort them selves out
Grub

 

[drex]

Newbie too.

Looked at your previous thread and it seems you hived these bees on 3/7/10.

Not clear but it sounds like it was a swarm? Had you ever seen any grubs?

I was in similar position, hiving a cast swarm ( virgin queen) and was getting worried thinking I was queenless. Advice on here was it can take 30 days for her to come into lay.
Sure enough, just a few days after posting, I spot grubs ( was not good at spotting eggs then). Took her time to get up to speed
The advice to me was to try a test frame, but at that stage had none.

All is now going well.

Good luck

 

[Roy S]

Can you get hold of a frame of eggs from anyone?

 

[Silly Bee]

All I can suggest is be patient. If they are going through the honey that they came with, it might be because they are clearing them so the queen can lay.

 

[MuswellMetro]

All I can suggest is be patient. If they are going through the honey that they came with, it might be because they are clearing them so the queen can lay.

who told you to feed this time of year ?, you will get honey block, if a flow is on..too few bees of the youngest age to make wax to store honey, so they fill the brood...queen has nowhere to lay therefore less new young bees...dimishing circles/...

so no room to lay, lots of food=swarm and QC

but that doesnt help...could be drone from badly mated Queen, lets hope so, she may pick up