Queenless dilemma

[Moody]

Hi all
I have a hive which was queenless so purchased a mated queen in June. Made them hopelessly queenless and introduced. When I checked 7 days later, there was no eggs/larve/brood.

I added a frame of eggs from a another colony. When I checked today there was several queen cells but we're all very small.

The hive as 3 supers (2 80% filled. 1 new foundation frames). They are now 28 days without a queen.

What are my options?

 

[ericbeaumont]

a hive which was queenless

What was the reason?

 

[Moody]

What was the reason?

Unknown. They had a 2021 queen who was doing well. All of a sudden, just disappeared.

 

[ericbeaumont]

All of a sudden, just disappeared

Queens don't just disappear!

Were you checking every 7 days leading up to her disappearance?

Either the colony has swarmed or the queen was superseded, or the beekeeper killed or damaged her.

In the latter two events the colony would make emergency QCs. An introduced queen may well be rejected if bees prefer their own.

Possible that the virgin disappeared - lost, bird - on her mating flight.

At least the status of the colony is now known. Are the EQCs capped?

Leave the colony alone for 3 weeks and then look for eggs quietly.

 

[Moody]

Yes checking every 7 days, saw 2 cells towards top of frame. Definitely haven't swarmed.

The emergency cells are capped.

Is it no point of introducing a new mated queen then?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

checking every 7 days, saw 2 cells towards top of frame

Could have swarmed then

Definitely haven't swarmed

How come?

 

[Moody]

Could have swarmed then

How come?

There's plenty of bees. Only have 3 colony's so remember the amounts..

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

There's plenty of bees. Only have 3 colony's so remember the amounts..

within hours of swarming the numbers of bees increase to almost the amount there was there previouslyso you wouldn't know they'd gone.
Obviously your new virgin failed or got lost on the way to the boys

 

[Moody]

within hours of swarming the numbers of bees increase to almost the amount there was there previouslyso you wouldn't know they'd gone.
Obviously your new virgin failed or got lost on the way to the boys

Ahh. Yes that could have happened.
Shall I just leave them to it and leave the multiple small QC's.
Just don't want them becoming drone layers. It's a big colony, want some honey in my first year. My reputation is on the line

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

reading through it again, there was probably a virgin in there when you introduced the new queen so she would have lasted five minutes.
If you are happy that these EQC's are proper emergency QC's, you can either now try introducing another queen, or just reduce to one good QC and hope you get a queen from that.
You could even, if you think the QCs are that poor, tear them all down and try another test frame

 

[enrico]

I too think you were a bit impatient. It is so easy to think a hive is queenless. This is so rarely the case, a hive will everything it can to have a queen, so often they become queenless because we interfere. Reckon the virgin that might have been there is no more so I like to open one emergency cell carefully to see what is inside. I would then reduce down to the best looking queen cell if all is ok. And then, provided it is opened in a week be patient!