Queenless colony

louiseww · Jun 28, 2011

I suspected last week that one of my colonies was queenless although I was hoping that the queen hadn't laid yet!
Today I inspected the hive because the bees were clustering outside last night and this morning which suggested that something was wrong!.
There is drone brood and some are uncapped with larvae visible. No other brood so I think there may be a laying worker.
What to do?
If I could find a queen cell in my other two colonies I could transfer that but I don't think I will because their new queens have only been laying for a couple of weeks.
This hive swarmed and the swarm is now doing well in a new hive - I have wondered whether to merge them using the paper method between the two brood boxes - have been reading Le Brun.
But what do I do with the supers which both have stores in them. Do I have to move the queenless colony near to the queen right colony first?

Any advice would be welcome as I havn't done this before not worthy

Thanks
Louise

rae · Jun 28, 2011

So this hive is the "left behind" part of an AS? Sounds like the queen failed to mate properly - they would be going some to have laying workers already.

Key question is whether you have a queen of any sort.

I'd put a test frame in. If they raise it, then they have a queen. If they build queen cells, then they don't.

If they have a queen, merging them with another hive could render that hive queenless. You will have to find and remove her before doing anything. (Or tip them out and let the flyers return).

If they don't have a queen, then you can either merge them, or buy a new queen in.

louiseww · Jun 28, 2011

rae said:
So this hive is the "left behind" part of an AS? Sounds like the queen failed to mate properly - they would be going some to have laying workers already.

Key question is whether you have a queen of any sort.

I'd put a test frame in. If they raise it, then they have a queen. If they build queen cells, then they don't.

If they have a queen, merging them with another hive could render that hive queenless. You will have to find and remove her before doing anything. (Or tip them out and let the flyers return).

If they don't have a queen, then you can either merge them, or buy a new queen in.

No this was an AS from May and then it swarmed!!!!
By test frame do you mean a frame with brood from elsewhere?
I have now put a frame of brood from another hive and will watch and wait before decided whether or not to merge - I presume with fresh sealed brood they will raise a queen if they are queenless!
Louise

SimonB · Jun 28, 2011

louiseww said:
I presume with fresh sealed brood they will raise a queen if they are queenless!
Louise

No, the test frame needs to include eggs, or at least very young larvae so that the colony can properly raise a queen, as if the egg was laid in a QC.

Poly Hive · Jun 28, 2011

Some useful reading here:

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8643&highlight=test+frame

PH

enrico · Jun 28, 2011

Take a frame with eggs. Immediately under the cells with the eggs in scrape the wax back to the foundation for the width of your hive tool. The queen cells will be drawn out from the eggs just above this, two or three usually, pick the best two. this will only happen if you have no queen but the advice is always to be patient. Queens can and will go off lay, new queens will take ages to mate and lay, invariably you will find everything turns out OK however the frame of eggs is always worth a try. Nothing lost! Remember not to replace the frame of eggs with a new frame. push all the existing frames together and put the new frame at the end or you will end up confusing your 'good' hive!
E