Queenless? Can someone confirm my diagnosis?

[Nakedapiarist]

Thanks for the patience and advice. I removed every comb yesterday and inspected every bee remaining in the box. Unless she's good at disguises the queen is not in residence so I'm uniting with the daughter's colony.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Thanks for the patience and advice. I removed every comb yesterday and inspected every bee remaining in the box. Unless she's good at disguises the queen is not in residence so I'm uniting with the daughter's colony.

Last weekend when preparing nucs at the association breeding apiary we were taking frames of brood from a brood box and searching for the queen as we did so. When all had been transferred there were a few bees fanning in a corner of the box. Yes - she was in there!
I've also found one on the underside of the entrance slot from one of my home hives. She was as elusive as Saddam.

 

[Ambodach]

I've picked up this thread, and I hope it's not against etiquette to express my not dissimilar problem in some else's thread, which I judged was approaching closure

Two hives, poorly managed this year due to other pressures, and last Thursday when I was away my son reported a swarm, which settled in the garden, but part of which left almost immediately. I investigated the next day and found both hives well full of bees, and with plenty of capacity. Hive 1 had no queen cells at all so no swarm from that, and Hive 2 had a couple which had not been sealed and were several days off being so. I assumed, in hindsight wrongly, that the swarm was nothing to do with me, and removed the queen cells; idiot!

5 days later, Hive 1 is fine and has a laying queen. Hive 2 doesn't have!

Is it several of those things that are bee-keeping myth that a queenless hive is aggressive, noisy and liable to attacked anyone within 10 paces, and further more that if they are actually queen right, you can tell because all the empty cells are polished clean? Hive 2, like it's partner, is quite relaxed and all is clean and tidy.

I'm going to transfer a frame with eggs/young brood from Hive 1 on a just in case basis.

Apologies if I am breaking etiquette

Rob

 

[Hawklord]

I'm going to transfer a frame with eggs/young brood from Hive 1 on a just in case basis. Rob

And that is always the best thing to do before anything else, when a colony is suspected queenless.

 

[wessexmario]

Is it several of those things that are bee-keeping myth that a queenless hive is aggressive, noisy and liable to attacked anyone within 10 paces, and further more that if they are actually queen right, you can tell because all the empty cells are polished clean?

not myth, but not absolute gospel either, more a tendency to do those things.