Problem 2!

[CliffDale]

I bought a Buckfastleigh queen a month ago for a queenless hive.

I have been away for a month and did my inspection today hoping to see my nice new brood.

I didnt see the queen but the brood in the national hive was all drone brood.

Nicely laid 70% coverage on frames all capped.

There were some laying worker evidence in the corners of the brood chamber with 2 to 3 eggs in the cells.

How do I fix this to give the bees the best chance of surviving winter?


Advice greatly appreciated please.

Cliff

 

[oliver90owner]

Ask the supplier to swap it for a better one?

RAB

 

[CliffDale]

Ill email them now!

 

[Hivemaker.]

Sounds like they killed your new queen.

 

[VEG]

Was it drone foundation?

 

[CliffDale]

no, brood foundation.

 

[VEG]

As you have 8 hives why didnt you unite it with another colony.
I would contact the supplier of the queen and ask for another free of charge.

 

[CliffDale]

As you have 8 hives why not unite it instead of trying to buy in a queen.

Thinking of this. I am getting a couple of nucs later in the week. Probably will unite queenless hive to nuc. The only problem is the nuc will be placed a mile away from the queenless hive.

cliff

 

[Hivemaker.]

Why not take the nuc to where the queenless hive is,hope the queenless hive has not got laying workers or a virgin, or you could end up with a dead queen in the nuc.

 

[CliffDale]

I am moving my apiary out of a dull woodland to a more open site closer to town and away from grassland farmland.

Nuc to be placed on new site.

In winter when bees are clustered, I hope to move all hives to new site

Cliff

 

[oliver90owner]

I am baffled by the information given here. Some of it just does not make any sense at all.

Nicely laid 70% coverage on frames all capped. Does not indicate laying workers.

There were some laying worker evidence in the corners of the brood chamber with 2 to 3 eggs in the cells. Either two or three? What makes you think it is workers? Yes, I know, the eggs were not in the bottom of the cells. The previous emboldened sentence says 70% of brood frame was capped - where is she going to lay if that much frame is capped brood, as there is another week's worth as open brood and 3 days worth of eggs! She, the queen, has run out of space!

Not long enough (4 weeks) to kill your queen, raise another, mate (or not) and start brood laying maybe a couple of weeks ago.

So if your new queen has been killed, you had a Q+ colony when she was introduced!!

Was this new queen marked? - she should have been. So should be easily checked.

A right mess if you ask me. Find the queen, remove, and then do as you think best -requeen or unite.

RAB

 

[Hivemaker.]

So why not unite the nuc to them where thay are, and move them in winter as well....the season is all but over now, and its a nuc...so not likely to be doing anything much.

 

[thurrock bees]

i would move the nuc away so it can be brought back for reuniting, in the mean time i would put a test frame in and that will tell you if the queen is there or not.

 

[CliffDale]

Ask the supplier to swap it for a better one?

RAB

Had a reply from the supplier, they will send a queen next Tuesday!

Looking good!

Cliff

 

[CliffDale]

I am baffled by the information given here. Some of it just does not make any sense at all.

Nicely laid 70% coverage on frames all capped. Does not indicate laying workers.

There were some laying worker evidence in the corners of the brood chamber with 2 to 3 eggs in the cells. Either two or three? What makes you think it is workers? Yes, I know, the eggs were not in the bottom of the cells. The previous emboldened sentence says 70% of brood frame was capped - where is she going to lay if that much frame is capped brood, as there is another week's worth as open brood and 3 days worth of eggs! She, the queen, has run out of space!

Not long enough (4 weeks) to kill your queen, raise another, mate (or not) and start brood laying maybe a couple of weeks ago.

So if your new queen has been killed, you had a Q+ colony when she was introduced!!

Was this new queen marked? - she should have been. So should be easily checked.

A right mess if you ask me. Find the queen, remove, and then do as you think best -requeen or unite.

RAB

Your are right, I think i have a drone laying queen with a laying worker. I promise a photo when i go through the hive!

Company is willing to replace the queen.


Cliff

 

[Mike a]

I think you may need some expert local help to determine what is going on.

Just be careful though if you combine with another colony that you are 100% positive there isn't a drone laying queen in there. If you are not 100% positive put a QE above the newspaper when you combine. (Its not a fail safe method but may save you additional problems)

 

[oliver90owner]

Your are right, I think i have a drone laying queen with a laying worker. I promise a photo when i go through the hive!

I am right or more likely to be right.

There are likely no laying workers (or no more than I might expect in any Q+ colony). She has run out of space. Period.

Think about it. How many days worth of capped brood? And that is 70% of the available space? How many days-worth of uncapped brood and eggs would there be if she was laying at a constant rate? Yes that comes to about 140% so far? Multiple eggs in the corners of the frames only? I wonder which bits of the frames will get used last?

Everything indicates a DLQ and nothing more. Whether it is the one you bought in is the only thing that is not yet clear, at least to me, sitting a long way away and in front of a computer screen, trying to decipher the information given in the earlier posts.

RAB

 

[CliffDale]

70% on a frame and not in the hive. I appreciate your comments and I will post a photo soon as possable.

 

[oliver90owner]

Post #1 Nicely laid 70% coverage on frames all capped.

Post #18 70% on a frame

Subtle difference. As I said, it needed deciphering. Sometimes the encryption is so random that it is impossible.

Actually, I knew that. 140% cannot be true, can it? But that was what we had to work on. I was allowing for you being out by a large factor and still having the queen run out of space.

It was Nicely laid 70% coverage on frames all capped that indicated the queen as the culprit. Workers do not lay nice patterns of brood.

Any brood frame covered with 70% capped brood means there can be an awful lot of pre-capped brood.

Hivemaker may well still be correct (post #4) in which case you may have got a good result out of your supplier. Alternatively the supplier may have already replaced several queens from that particular batch.......who knows? You will, if she was marked!! We will never be quite sure.... unless there is a photo.

RAB

 

[MuswellMetro]

so you are going to put in the new queen on tuesday to let the DLQ will kill it on wednesday