Queen off lay?

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Joined
Nov 9, 2008
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Location
S.E. Cornwall
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
Enough
In one of my stronger hives, there are no signs of any eggs.
Should I be worried or is it usual for the queen to stop laying for a period?

They are low on stores, but there is tons of HB around them.
 
I have the same with one of my hives. No eggs/brood the bees are very calm not much stores left. Balsom all around them. If there are no eggs on the next visit I will combine them with another hive.
 
I have found the same in one of mine. She was there, bees happy but no eggs. I gave a couple of fresh frames and a little feed and they all kicked off again drawing fresh comb, and she started laying. Never understood why. They were not short of space before.
 
Yes some queens will go off lay if stores are low and nothing much comming in, mouths to feed and all that, or they could have a young queen that has not started laying.
Many hives that come back after the heather don't have an egg in sight.
 
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Give them a feed, plenty of time for them to build brood back up.
 
Phew, ok, glad to hear it's not just me.

I would have thought that with plenty of HB they would be fine.
But maybe it's being used quicker than they can store it.

I'll give them a feed regardless. They're low on stores and there's lots of bees.
 
Further to Hive makers comment I used to bring my heather apiary back in 2nd week of Sept and all near with no exception were broodless.

Not for long mind....LOL

PH
 
Sae here.
Inspected 5 hives today and 2 nearly no eggs/larvae but calm.
Assume it's all the bad weather we've had lately.
Plenty of stores since I've fed.
 
Further to Hive makers comment I used to bring my heather apiary back in 2nd week of Sept and all near with no exception were broodless.

Not for long mind....LOL

PH
I was going to mention that they were also often completely broodless as well,but did not want to worry the OP to much...lol.
I always take this opertunity to give them one short varroa treatment before the ivy starts them brooding again when back down in the valley.
 
Further to Hive makers comment I used to bring my heather apiary back in 2nd week of Sept and all near with no exception were broodless.

So, is it the case that heather does not provide the required quantities of pollen for brood rearing? Few other sources of pollen on a heather moor.
 

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