Queenless Hive

[Fahey]

First inspection yesterday revealed one of my hives queenless, so I put in a frame of BIAS from another. Question is how soon will I be able to see evidence of a new queen cell being started......24 hours?

 

[Percymerlin]

Sorry to be dim! but when you say "Queenless" ( I gather queen not seen) does that also mean also mean "no eggs seen"

 

[Fahey]

Yes...all brood frames completly empty, very little activity at the entrance although quite a few bees inside.

 

[VEG]

Yes no eggs and no queen seen, but queens can go off lay for a number of reasons, and they can be hard to find. Which is when a test frame comes into use.

 

[Heather]

Look in 5 days, and if queenless they will have begun to draw down a cell to develop. If they have, leave alone for another week. Then peek to see if def a queen cell. If yes, leave for 4 weeks.

If no cell developed. Recheck for eggs.

 

[Midland Beek]

Are you sure you actually have a colony in that hive you think is queenless? Did the colony die long ago and these bees are robbing the honey? If so, these bees will go home at night and the hive will be empty.

Emergency queen cells are raised on larvae not more than three days old, so if your test frame contained larvae of the correct age they will not waste any time raising new queens and you could probably see the result in the day after tomorrow type of timescale.

If there is a queen in there you need to find and kill and unite to your queenright colony - assuming you have one. Do not even bother letting them raise a queen of their own as that colony will get into a hopeless mess that will be even more difficult to sort out than it already is. Oh ... and make sure you destroy all queen cells before you unite to your queenright colony because if you don't out might pop a swarm containing your only good queen.

 

[oliver90owner]

hopeless mess

MB put it quite succinctly. Follow his advice. I, too, am a little bewildered as to how many colonies you actually have - using the word 'another' instead of 'the other' makes me wonder if there are more or whether the test frame came from a third party.

If it is being robbed it will have been a waste of a good frame of brood. Always consider all the possibilities before acting is always my advice.

 

[Heather]

Being robbed? But he said very little activity at entrance which made me think.. young bees.
Yep, too little info really.