Queenless possibility

[JonnyPicklechin]

Hi all

May I say best wishes to fellow beekeepers, beginners and old hands alike for the new working season and a wonderful spring. We've certainly got off to a cracker weather wise. My first inspection has seen 13 of my 14 all looking pretty good after winter.

However! One of the most (historically) productive hives has a decent population of bees, indicating some early offspring activity, but I couldn't see any larvae or eggs...So suspecting a queenless situation, I thought about introducing a queen from a NUC but then I'm thinking perhaps there is a supersedure VQ in there produced recently. With of course no drones about she might be waiting for an spring good time with some recently introduced young bucks hanging out above.....

Should I be patient and wait? One or two of the other hives have drones present as well as drone brood in evidence.

Time for a test frame in the meantime?

Cheers all.....

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

If you've got a virgin in there I think it's a pretty vain hope of her getting mated now. try a test frame if you have spare brood.

 

[enrico]

If you've got a virgin in there I think it's a pretty vain hope of her getting mated now. try a test frame if you have spare brood.

It is still very early and eggs are easy to miss but a test frame wouldn't do any harm

 

[La Folie]

I have a very similar situation so popped in a test frame today to see what happens. With the predicted cold snap I don't expect to get another opportunity to inspect for a few weeks so, one way or another, things will be clearer