Queen stopped laying

[beebopper]

2 of my queens have stopped laying.
Queen present but brood box is packed with honey. I put a supper on each two weeks ago but they are empty.
Replaced a few old combs in brood box but they have hardly bothered to even draw them out.
Thinking of extracting honey and giving brood box back - any other ideas gratefully received?
Another small colony which was very aggressive needs to be requeened. If I put cage in for a few days and then allow her to be introduced - is this likely to be successful - as they are aggressive I am worried they will attack and kill her.
Any help on this would also be gratefully received.

 

[beeno]

Have you got a QX on, if so I would take it off and see how that goes assuming that you have got drawn frames in the super. Is it winter stores in the brood box or this year's honey? Are the colonies well populated with bees? What exactly is the brood situation - eggs, larvae, capped brood. When did you last have sight of the queens?

 

[JWF]

As above, plus -


Are the bees going up into the super at all?

If you know you have a viable queen you try scoring some of the capped stores in the brood box to encourage them to move them up into the super.

Or maybe remove a frame from the BB and replace with an empty, preferably drawn, frame. That will give a bit of space. The weather is cooler in kent this week so i'd imagine the flow will slow down, which might give queeny a chance to start laying in the new frame.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

If it's ivy stores - bees are reluctant to move it unless you scrape all the cappings off - how many frames of brood are there?

 

[rook66]

Do you know the origin of the queens? nosemic queens stop laying.

 

[beebopper]

If it's ivy stores - bees are reluctant to move it unless you scrape all the cappings off - how many frames of brood are there?

only a small patch on 1 frame!! There is a lot of fresh honey - ie this years

 

[beebopper]

Do you know the origin of the queens? nosemic queens stop laying.

Queens raised last year during AS.

 

[beebopper]

Have you got a QX on, if so I would take it off and see how that goes assuming that you have got drawn frames in the super. Is it winter stores in the brood box or this year's honey? Are the colonies well populated with bees? What exactly is the brood situation - eggs, larvae, capped brood. When did you last have sight of the queens?

Very little brood - no eggs I could see - some old and some fresh honey. There are a lot of bees with lots of activity Have remove QX.
It looks as if they have swarmed but no QC and queen present.
Thanks for all the replies.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

very little brood - seems like the queen has been flagging for some time - bees feel no need to move stores up as there's not much demand for space below.
I'll go with the flow and agree nosemic

 

[beebopper]

very little brood - seems like the queen has been flagging for some time - bees feel no need to move stores up as there's not much demand for space below.
I'll go with the flow and agree nosemic

Would you spray with thymolated syrup? Have ordered a couple of queen so will eventually requeen.

Is this sensible? I am also a little confused because they are a strong colony so queen must have been laying well.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Worth a punt, what have you got to lose?
I know you say there are lots of bees - but if there's very little brood something has been goingn wrong for a while.

 

[beebopper]

Worth a punt, what have you got to lose?
I know you say there are lots of bees - but if there's very little brood something has been goingn wrong for a while.

It certainly does - for some reason she has stopped laying just over 3 weeks ago. My point about a lot of bees was because I would not have expected a nosemic queen to build up a colony and then fail - am I wrong there?
Initially I had taken it was due to lack of laying space - but this does not seem to really make sense now (to me) as they have not bothered to draw comb.

 

[beeno]

Are your queens marked?

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

There does seem to be a lot of Nosema around this year. Forcing them to eat some syrup which just HAPPENS to have been preserved with thymol is a low-risk approach if you do not have the ability to confirm one way or the other. Have a look at Hivemaker's recipe etc.

 

[beebopper]

Are your queens marked?

Yes

 

[beeno]

Well, maybe it's a question of dealing with the flow. The weather is going to improve so maybe that will make them sort themselves out. Keep us posted.

 

[beebopper]

The queen has started laying nicely again.
They had moved some honey up - brood box is still packed with honey however.
I think it was a large flow which packed the brood box so queen had no space to lay. They did have a super on though but chose not to us it. Taking the queen excluder of seems to have helped - which makes me if they are more trouble than they are worth.
Thx for help.

 

[beeno]

That is good news!