Queenless Colony?

[candyfloss2]

Can any one help, we have a reasonably strong colony that definitely seems to be without a queen, lots of nectar, bees cleaning out cells but no eggs, grubs etc has any got a spare queen in the south east or could post one to us. I assume that unless I can source a queen the colony is domed or can someone out there advise diferently

Any advice gladly recieved

Bob

 

[Mike a]

Bob

Hope someone has a spare for you bob, but in the mean time I would take a frame of eggs from your other colony and let them raise a new queen. You can always remove any queen cells or make up a nuc if you get one in the mean time.

 

[mandabow]

Bob

Hope someone has a spare for you bob, but in the mean time I would take a frame of eggs from your other colony and let them raise a new queen. You can always remove any queen cells or make up a nuc if you get one in the mean time.

if your second colony isnt strong either.. once the queens cells are capped, (cage at least one) then it may be worth uniting hives to have one strong(er) colony and building it up to split later on when your new queen is hatched and/or there will be more queens about should she get eaten by a bird on her flight/hunt for a shag.

you could just unite and wait until someone has a spare queen if you can't get one now. or continue to move brood across until theyve produced a new queen she's mated and laying.

good luck finding a queenie. maybe try finding someone who is requeening. even if she's old tis better than no queen and less loss of production (both overall hive mass and honey) than any of above methods

 

[candyfloss2]

unfortunately we are down to this colony so things are not good

 

[xwb]

I may be wrong, but isn't it too early for a queen to mate? lack of drones?

 

[thurrock bees]

I may be wrong, but isn't it too early for a queen to mate? lack of drones?

ive seen some drones in my hives over the last week

 

[mandabow]

I may be wrong, but isn't it too early for a queen to mate? lack of drones?

i wouldnt imagine many, but by the time a queen is ready to mate things may be a bit better, and her "window" isn't hideously short.. but errm thats if there was another colony :s

unfortunately we are down to this colony so things are not good

eeep, not so good... well if you can't get a queen try and get a frame of uncapped brood, so they can try and raise a queen.

and feed them lots so they don't knacker their wings bringing in nectar as well as the pollen they will need to raise her, the other brood and hopefully her progeny.

may even be worth getting a bit of pollen if you can..

quicker you can get it in the better. as your bees will dwindle to nothing, the more you have the higher chances of anything working... maybe write to the guy in forsale/wanted who has been collecting old queens and see if you can borrow one from the diseesction table in exchange for sending her on once you've requeened and any other excess queens you produce when you superceed her.


Edited to add....


it may help your cause if you put your location on your profileee.. if your round the corner from someone it's a lot easier for them to lend a hand..

make lots of swarm traps and shove them up in trees of your friends houses..

presuming you still ahve you onld colony box, so that'l be a lure in your garden. but take some bits of brood from it and put them in swarm traps all over and maybe you can bag a queen and some workers to save your hive(s) too