Puzzling situation, act III

[astabada]

Hello everyone,
I inspected my hive this morning, in which I introduced a new queen about two weeks ago. After the first few days in which she wasn't laying at all, I finally found a lot of eggs on about 3-4 frames (and a lot of queen cells with eggs in them which I destroyed). This was last Wednesday.

Today I opened the hive again and found a few queen cells, but only a few (3-4), still with eggs.

But here's the dodgy part: I have only found 1, and I mean 1, larva!
Lots of eggs in about 4 frames but nothing else! How is this possible? It has been 4 days since the last inspection in which I found eggs!

 

[enrico]

New larvae are very very small, I bet you missed them, sorry but that is most likely. I would be tempted to let them replace your queen, they obviously don't want her!
E

 

[astabada]

New larvae are very very small, I bet you missed them, sorry but that is most likely. I would be tempted to let them replace your queen, they obviously don't want her!
E

We did look very carefully in each frame and found no larvae, it was really a bad surprise.
I don't know what to do, maybe adding a frame of larvae and capped brood (from one of the other hives we have) might encourage them?

 

[Hivemaker.]

Laying workers.

 

[astabada]

Laying workers.

Why would they be making queen cells then?

 

[enrico]

Because they don't know they are not proper eggs but do know they have no queen!

 

[Russel]

Hello everyone,
I inspected my hive this morning, in which I introduced a new queen about two weeks ago. After the first few days in which she wasn't laying at all, I finally found a lot of eggs on about 3-4 frames (and a lot of queen cells with eggs in them which I destroyed). This was last Wednesday.

Today I opened the hive again and found a few queen cells, but only a few (3-4), still with eggs.

But here's the dodgy part: I have only found 1, and I mean 1, larva!
Lots of eggs in about 4 frames but nothing else! How is this possible? It has been 4 days since the last inspection in which I found eggs!

Do you normally inspect every 4 days or was this a "one off" due to the egg/larva situation and queen cells are not always "swarm" cells? Your bees were telling you something might not be right with this one!

 

[beeno]

Hi astabada,
One of two things IMHO: 1. You were looking for one day old larvae, very small indeed and you may have missed them. 2. If the eggs were still there and had not developed then you most probably have a dud queen IMHO.

 

[user 6228]

Things in a colony arent, "if this then that". Its more what is the winning action, the majority vote when a change is progress.

 

[astabada]

I usually inspect once a week but I wanted to check the new queen situation.
I obviously can't be 100% sure that this new queen is laying but the colony has been queenless for 3 and 1/2 weeks, isn't it too early for a laying worker? Especially when they had a proper new queen...
So what do you think I should do now? Wait and see? There's not much I can do right?

 

[beeno]

Hi astabada,
Nothing may be wrong. You went in a bit early... probably. Wait until Saturday when you should have capped brood if all is well!

 

[astabada]

Hi astabada,
Nothing may be wrong. You went in a bit early... probably. Wait until Saturday when you should have capped brood if all is well!

Thanks Beeno, let's hope so!
I bought a new proper queen (36£) so that this colony would be even better and now I might end up with a dead hive...

 

[BeeJayBee]

I usually inspect once a week but I wanted to check the new queen situation.
I obviously can't be 100% sure that this new queen is laying but the colony has been queenless for 3 and 1/2 weeks, isn't it too early for a laying worker? Especially when they had a proper new queen...
So what do you think I should do now? Wait and see? There's not much I can do right?

It's easy to be worried, but realistically you're better off waiting to inspect until you're fairly sure you'll see capped brood - that way you don't lose the new queen's pheromones, which might be still quite weak and could be why they're trying to supersede her.