Queen sickness?

[rossbyjove]

Is a lot of 'queen failure' is attributed to the local drone population, or lack thereof?

i was slightly dismayed to see in our area/association magazine a group advocating the forking out of drone brood, all in the name of varroa removal and IPM. Surely by the time the bees are raising the critical winter bees, any varroa removed by drone removal earlier in the year will have been replaced?

Couple that with hives stuffed with only worker foundation, we really are doing our best to mess with half of the genetics!

I was offered a swarm from someone a few days ago.
I got my swarm from her last year.
At out last club meet she said she lost three colonies due to what she suspects are poor queens.
I told her that my swarm has superceded twice and I am now on my third queen.
So I said there may be something going on with local genetics and hoped the gentics of this swarm were better than the last.
She took offence at me insulting the genetics of her bees and refused to give me the swarm.
She also kills all her drones.
I'm thinking it could be a blessing in disguise ?

 

[Ian123]

I was offered a swarm from someone a few days ago.
I got my swarm from her last year.
At out last club meet she said she lost three colonies due to what she suspects are poor queens.
I told her that my swarm has superceded twice and I am now on my third queen.
So I said there may be something going on with local genetics and hoped the gentics of this swarm were better than the last.
She took offence at me insulting the genetics of her bees and refused to give me the swarm.
She also kills all her drones.
I'm thinking it could be a blessing in disguise ?

By the sound of it I’d be dubious of anything she said or advice given, probably best to avoid.

 

[Blunt Spike]

"I told her that my swarm has superceded twice and I am now on my third queen.
So I said there may be something going on with local genetics and hoped the gentics of this swarm were better than the last.
She took offence at me insulting the genetics of her bees and refused to give me the swarm."

Does she just let her hives swarm and then catch them? If not how could she take offence at the comment re genetics they won't be her bees?

 

[rossbyjove]

I was offered a swarm from someone a few days ago.
I got my swarm from her last year.
At out last club meet she said she lost three colonies due to what she suspects are poor queens.
I told her that my swarm has superceded twice and I am now on my third queen.
So I said there may be something going on with local genetics and hoped the gentics of this swarm were better than the last.
She took offence at me insulting the genetics of her bees and refused to give me the swarm.
She also kills all her drones.
I'm thinking it could be a blessing in disguise ?

The queen has now vanished and no bias at all.
The colony has had it.
I suspect she has also had words with someone at the club and I am not getting offered any swarms at all.
Other people are.
Politics hey !

 

[pargyle]

Why not put out a few bait boxes and catch your own swarm ? They are going to have the same local genetics ...

 

[rossbyjove]

Why not put out a few bait boxes and catch your own swarm ? They are going to have the same local genetics ...

I have put out a couple of bait Nucs but no interest at all so far.
I am thinking of getting six frames of bees with a marked, mated queen from about 20 miles away for 150 quid.
Not really sure if I want local if the queens are not up to much ?

 

[pargyle]

I have put out a couple of bait Nucs but no interest at all so far.
I am thinking of getting six frames of bees with a marked, mated queen from about 20 miles away for 150 quid.
Not really sure if I want local if the queens are not up to much ?

Open mated queens are always a lottery - you get whatever genetics result from the queen but more importantly whatever genetics that come from the drones she mates with. I've picked up some really good swarms over the years with nice productive bees - but, the reality is that it's the bees in a good swarm that are the value - you can buy in a new queen for £40 if the existing queen turns out to be a poor performer or you end up with the hive from hell.

Do you know what you are getting in the £150 Nuc from 20 miles away ... is it from a reputable breeder ? I've seen (dubious) beekeepers who catch swarms, stick them in a Nuc, mark whatever queen is with the swarm and sell them on ...it's a case of buyer beware in these circumstances.

 

[rossbyjove]

Open mated queens are always a lottery - you get whatever genetics result from the queen but more importantly whatever genetics that come from the drones she mates with. I've picked up some really good swarms over the years with nice productive bees - but, the reality is that it's the bees in a good swarm that are the value - you can buy in a new queen for £40 if the existing queen turns out to be a poor performer or you end up with the hive from hell.

Do you know what you are getting in the £150 Nuc from 20 miles away ... is it from a reputable breeder ? I've seen (dubious) beekeepers who catch swarms, stick them in a Nuc, mark whatever queen is with the swarm and sell them on ...it's a case of buyer beware in these circumstances.

Checked the hive a week ago and no sign of the queen, eggs, larvae or brood.
Checked an hour ago and still the same.
Just come back from the club apiary and one of the mentors said to buy a queen would be cheaper.
Just ordered a buckfast from BMH.
The Bath six frame would appear to be from a reputable breeder but I will put that on hold for a bit I think.
I bought another hive and built two Nucs thinking it would take off this year and now have hardly any bees at all !
Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

[user 20297]

Checked the hive a week ago and no sign of the queen, eggs, larvae or brood.
Checked an hour ago and still the same.
Just come back from the club apiary and one of the mentors said to buy a queen would be cheaper.
Just ordered a buckfast from BMH.
The Bath six frame would appear to be from a reputable breeder but I will put that on hold for a bit I think.
I bought another hive and built two Nucs thinking it would take off this year and now have hardly any bees at all !
Thanks for the advice everyone.

You'll find that bees will find you as soon as you start buying them in. I spent a few hundred pounds on bees and queens when I first started. I needn't have bothered with more than one nuc or probably even with that, and I definitely didn't need the queens. Before much time had passed my own bees gave me swarms and to cap all that, other peoples bees started to zone in on my bait hives and spare boxes.
My very best bees all have a lineage back to a nuc that I bought from another amateur about twenty miles away. Even yesterday, a swarm of #notmybees adopted a spare box lying by some of my hives.

 

[Garry R]

Inspected my six hives and don't seem to have the problems others have reported - thank goodness. One had queen cells a few weeks back and rather than an artificial swarm I popped the queen in a parking nuc and set it to one side leaving the queenless lot on the original site - it is a long hive and not easily shifted. Knocked out the QC all but one about a week later and today a month later she has mated and laying like a good one. They have also tucked away about 50lbs of hawthorn honey (no brood to feed) in their 14 x 12 frames. Success I feel and loads of drones as there are 3 14 x 8 frames out of the 25 frames in there which the bees pull drone comb below in the gap,

Of the other hives there is one which has a iffy queen but I knew that and am hoplng to sort that from a colony which is on 12 frame national brood no QC and I put the fifth super on today. The other hives are a bit behind with 3 supers and no QC . When you think of the weather 4-5 weeks ago and our worries of the cold wet weather it is incredible what the bees have done in such a short time. Helped by stunning weather since then and blossom I don't think I have seen in the 40+ years I have been keeping bees. And remember although the dandelions were superb in Somerset we had such poor weather when they were in flower the bees barely worked on them. My hives are all polys. Hope those with problems get sorted out and come up with an explanation.

 

[boywonder]

Chaps, without wanting re-rehearse thoughts / observations / examples in relation to inexplicable queen failures above (other than to say that this continues to be an issue for me) .... I wanted to ask about whether people are seeing increased problems with queens arriving in swarms this year?

Let me explain... I got called out to a swarm on a pavement the other week. See photo. Basically, the Queen had died mid-swarm, and the bees were all flat as a pancake on the pavement (her corpse was still being attended to).



I have never experienced this before. As we know, swarms often hit the press at this time of year. Journos with nothing better to do, publishing sensationalist articles about swarms on cars, swarms in city centres etc .. However, I have seen a very noticeable uptick in these being similar 'floor swarms' with a dead queen.

This is about the third such example I've seen in the press in the last couple of weeks:
https://www.harboroughmail.co.uk/ne...-of-bees-create-a-buzz-in-lutterworth-4182893
Is this actually common ???

Over and above this, I have had 2 bait box arrivals which were (or soon turned) queenless.

Maybe I'm just noticing it more as I am more tuned-in, or maybe just because it's been a particularly swarmy year, but it's all continuing to feel concerning

 

[Newbeeneil]

Chaps, without wanting re-rehearse thoughts / observations / examples in relation to inexplicable queen failures above (other than to say that this continues to be an issue for me) .... I wanted to ask about whether people are seeing increased problems with queens arriving in swarms this year?

Let me explain... I got called out to a swarm on a pavement the other week. See photo. Basically, the Queen had died mid-swarm, and the bees were all flat as a pancake on the pavement (her corpse was still being attended to).

View attachment 36616

I have never experienced this before. As we know, swarms often hit the press at this time of year. Journos with nothing better to do, publishing sensationalist articles about swarms on cars, swarms in city centres etc .. However, I have seen a very noticeable uptick in these being similar 'floor swarms' with a dead queen.

This is about the third such example I've seen in the press in the last couple of weeks:
https://www.harboroughmail.co.uk/ne...-of-bees-create-a-buzz-in-lutterworth-4182893
Is this actually common ???

Over and above this, I have had 2 bait box arrivals which were (or soon turned) queenless.

Maybe I'm just noticing it more as I am more tuned-in, or maybe just because it's been a particularly swarmy year, but it's all continuing to feel concerning

I had a similar experience. A swarm arrived at one of my bait hives in my son’s garden, when I went to pick it up at about 9pm that night I thought that the box felt light and when I looked down there was a very large pile of bees against the wall below the box.
As I shovelled the bees into the box I notice a ball of bees around a dead queen. I can only assume she died just as the swarm arrived at their chosen home and she crashed and died before she got in!

 

[drex]

Yet more Q problems that Roger P has been going on about for years. I am seeing things in my colonies with queens which I cannot explain . Something is going on.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Yet more Q problems that Roger P has been going on about for years. I am seeing things in my colonies with queens which I cannot explain . Something is going on.

Doubtful - his pet theories have been proven ambiguous, vague and rubbished season upon season.
Seen none of these issues around here and never heard it brought up by the many queen breeders, bee farmers or hobby beekeepers I know.

 

[Ian123]

Swarms landing on a floor are not uncommon and probably more than we realise as I’m sure they’d often cluster shortly after.
If they are on the floor queens and other bees are obviously vulnerable to any beeks size 10s as he tries to collect them?
Again any virgin can be duff there’s always a percentage so swarms that later turn queen less or drone layer are to be expected. For instance if I put 20 cells into nucs i may expect 16 mated and up and running. Some emerge with defects some will be lost on flight, others may start laying then fail.

So a number of failures are to be expected, let’s face it’s probably one of the most vulnerable times! Another reason I’m often dubious about claims of feral colonies in existence for long periods.
So far this season matings have been very good for me but with drones being favoured by varroa, viruses and perhaps some varroa treatments, you’d have to assume more queen failures to a degree. But I can’t see a huge difference from previous years or pre varroa years.