Stubborn Resistance to introducing a new Queen

[Graham40]

I have been trying to requeen a Colony since early May, they appear to be queenless, as they initially tried to raise a queen themselves, which failed.
Since then they have had two test frames both with no results, I then introduced a mated queen, which laid a few eggs then they decided to produce their own Q cell which also failed?? Bumping off the new queen in the process.
They now have a third test frame which I'm waiting for the results of.
I'm tempted to throw them out, however this beekeeper is as stubborn as the bees.... PS there are another 16 Colonies on this site 10 of which are nucs raising Q'cells so no shortage of replacement candidates

Possibly there's another duff virgin queen in the hive no doubt quicker than the beekeeper as haven't spotted her yet. So the only way I can think of finding it and disposing of it is to use a queen excluder and sieve them through it.

Its been 2 weeks since the last queen cell perhaps give it another week before using this method ??

What are your thoughts

 

[fiftyjon]

Sometimes one can spend a great deal of time on a problem colony for it only to fail again later.

If it were me I'll wait for another week, ten days, then I'll be chucking them all out if nothing happens and spend my time elsewhere.

 

[beeno]

Hi Graham40,
Maybe they were trying to supercede and they changed their minds - it's a lady's prerogative in prular form! In which way did they fail at their first attempt to requeen?

 

[Teemore]

Graham, I can empathise with the inclination to get that colony Queenright... I have persevered in the past as part of the ongoing learning process.

My suggestion would be to drop in another frame of eggs and larvae now and do the same in a week's time. Hopefully the progressive 'injection' of pheromones from the brood will either prompt the bees to realise they are Q- or prompt a tardy queen to start to lay...

 

[Queens59]

I had a colony I re-queened 5 times last year, 2 virgins run in and killed within hours, 1 bought queen killed in the cage, 2 good QCs...either killed on hatching or similar...eventually accepted that I couldn't save them and put them into the back of the garden to wither away. Small swarm moved in with them (never heard of it before & almost no fighting visible) ...and they killed the queen in the swarm after she laid one frame and refused to make QCs and eventually died 6 weeks later.

 

[madasafish]

I had one hive with a virgin, then mated which did not lay for weeks. Could not find queen.. Sorting it out took 2 months and by the end it was weak and feeble.

Having learned from that, next time I would give up and write them off. They may eventually produce the queen or die out...

 

[Lorenz]

If you regularly (weekly) add young brood and eggs and also add a frame of brood about to emerge regualrly, they will make a queen. The question is are they worth saving to you?

 

[Finman]

.
You are experienced beekeeper.
You have now a real nut what you may call "black hole of queens".

 

[beeno]

.
You are experienced beekeeper.
You have now a real nut what you may call "black hole of queens".

Hi Finman,
In the absence of Graham40 answering my query. What the hell is going on with this one then?

 

[Finman]

.
There are several alternatives why they kill the queen.

Once a hive killed my all spare queens 4 pieces in Autumn. It was without queen the whole winter and in spring it accept a queen.

They may have workers size emergency queen which is difficult to notice.
Last year I have a queen which had no wings, Bees had teared them off but the colony did not accept queens, queen cells or anything else. Then I saw that bug after many seekings.

 

[Bosveldleeu]

I would take them about 20 yards away, put another hive in their place with a few frames of sealed brood if you have some, comb if you don't. Put a QE over the entrance, then shake all the bees out and let them fly back. Some young bees may not be orientated but will hopefully join other hives.

Some polynucs have a nice round plastic thing you can easily adjust and turn round till the QE bit is in front of the opening. If you use one of these you also don't have to find so many frames to put in.

If you see a queen frantically trying to get into the hive - kill her .

Any brood left in the original hive can be given to other colonies or put back into the hive at the original position, taking care not to let too many bees in at the top in doing so.

I find that easier than trying to sieve a whole colony through an excluder.

Next day, give them a protected queencell (or a queen in a cage) and feed. If you use a caged queen do not expose the candy untill some young bees have hatched from the brood and the bees have stopped balling the cage. If you don't have a queencell or a queen you can also give them a frame of young brood.

Strengthen with brood as needed.

That's just how I deal with it, and it has worked in the past, I appreciate opinions may differ.

 

[Graham40]

Well I'm going to do a demo with an excluder for the Aberdeen Beekeepers association, we're sorting a date out, so we'll have a discussion about it first see what other ideas they come up with. Then we will get down to finding the queen, if she turns out to be an old queen she will get stuck in the excluder. We're just working out what frames to go bellow, as a new frame with eggs were added last night. in 10 days time another cell may have been drawn out, alternatively if its a young queen she might have started laying, theres syrup on to give her impotus.

 

[beeno]

Thanks for the tips Bosveldleeu and Graham40 can't wait to see what happens. There must be some order otherwise how can we manage bees?!!!

 

[Walrus]

I had a hive like that (kept killing queen, raising new one, killing that etc.) so I chucked them out last weekend. It's been a pain in the backside for ages (last year as well) so I feel OK about it. Im going to sterilise the hive and populate it later with one of my nucs/newly mated queen.

 

[Graham40]

Ok the deed has been done. After a short discussion with other members who gathered for this demo and a trawl through the broodbox there was still no sign of eggs or for that matter the old HM. However the bees were not agitated which we took as a sign that there was a queen still present.

We got ourselves ready with an emerging Virgin Queen from another nuc. The consensus was that a Virgin Queen is normally accepted anywhere readily and as there were plenty on hand it would be better to hatch one now rather than start from scratch.

A fresh empty hive was made ready, with empty broodbox on the old site. The colony was then reopened and the outer frames cleared of bees into the old hive, then replaced in the center of the new broodbox a couple of other bars were added from stock. This done we then added a queen excluder to the top and proceeded to clear off the bees from the remaining frames in the colony into the new broodbox. Sure enough on the very last frame we cornered the old HM tattered wings and quite large and surprisingly quick. she was removed from office.. This done we then added the frames making up the box and a new young queen.. she was just emerging we had wanted to cage the cell and then release the new queen tomorrow unfortunately we were to late so the new queen was run in. So now we just wait and see if the new queen is accepted/mated etc.

 

[beeno]

Hi Graham40,
Thanks for telling the tale. They are not so clever then, prepared to go down with the ship! Amazing!