Q- Hive, any prospect of introducing a bought in Q now?

[sean-a]

Big hive but no brood or eggs.
Trapped the queen above the QE and found it a few weeks ago.
Removed the QE, but must have squashed the Q

Looked this weekend and nothing !

Lots of bees and stores though.

 

[badger28]

Big hive but no brood or eggs.

Trapped the queen above the QE and found it a few weeks ago.

Removed the QE, but must have squashed the Q



Looked this weekend and nothing !



Lots of bees and stores though.

I managed to introduce one on Tuesday... It was quite difficult to find a queen online though, most places are sold out now.

I had her in the travel cage for a day, then took a risk and let her out. She just walked into the hive...

Sent from my GM1903 using Tapatalk

 

[Erichalfbee]

Big hive but no brood or eggs.
Trapped the queen above the QE and found it a few weeks ago.
Removed the QE, but must have squashed the Q

Looked this weekend and nothing !

Lots of bees and stores though.

A few weeks ?
They would have made a new one for themselves
How many weeks is a few?
Are the bees calm?

 

[sean-a]

A few weeks ?
They would have made a new one for themselves
How many weeks is a few?
Are the bees calm?

About 3 wks
They were reasonably calm to start with, but got agitated after a few minutes.
Not overly aggressive, but they did follow me for about 10 metres

There were 3 brood combs that have been welded together with brace comb running at an angle which I didn't remove, but pretty sure that there are no brood as these were against the hive wall.

 

[Erichalfbee]

They would be doing well if they managed emergency queen cells to laying queen in three weeks
You are going to have to put in a test frame
They probably have a queen already

 

[Ian123]

In answer to the original question yes a very good time to introduce queens atm. As above though do you need 1.

 

[sean-a]

Thanks.
They are in a field but I have two hives there, so I will put a frame in from the other and see what happens.

 

[Bee Boys]

BS Honey bees Carniolan Queens are still avalable and are very good queens I have had one 4 months. The hive has gone from 0 frames of brood now to 7 frames with 9 frames of bees ( frames covered with bees) and they are bringing a lot of hiney in and are still bilding a lot of wax.

 

[oliver90owner]

Always, always determine if there is actually a queen present - or any introduced queen will be toast.

It is only the middle September. Lots of colonies supercede at this time of the year, so if the weather is good in early October the new queen would get mated.

So new queen one way or another. Otherwise it is a uniting issue later.

The question of why a big hive, if no queen, and why they would not have made emergency queen cells - if there was brood and the queen was squashed - needs to be addressed, before putting any bought-in queen in there.

 

[Stiffy]

In answer to the original question yes a very good time to introduce queens atm. As above though do you need 1.

Re-queening quite a few colonies that didn't perform as they should at present and finding replacement queen acceptance going well.
S

 

[mbc]

Big hive but no brood or eggs.
Trapped the queen above the QE and found it a few weeks ago.
Removed the QE, but must have squashed the Q

Looked this weekend and nothing !

Lots of bees and stores though.

Buy a queen, make up a nuc to introduce her to from one of your other hives and unite over newspaper if the big q- hive hasn't altered whilst the nuc queen gets accepted and starts laying.