Test frame and piping?

[Sussex Bees]

Just checked my two colonies, one has six frames of brood and plenty of stores the other has very little sealed brood left and no eggs. It was looking okay last week, probably 4 frames of brood.

So I took a frame of eggs from the q+ colony and placed it in the other.

I then heard what I thought was rhythmical piping coming from this hive, but having listened to the YouTube clip on here, I'm now not sure.
The sound I heard was a lot lower frequency, sounded a bit like a pigeon cooing.

Could it be the queen piping, maybe had a break from laying or maybe the workers checking out the frame of eggs?

 

[Poly Hive]

Gone from 4 frames of brood to none in a week?

No pics possibly?

PH

 

[Sussex Bees]

There is evidence of the brood nest with a little sealed brood on the outside frames but just polished cells in the middle.

I didn't take any photos.

 

[drstitson]

couple of thoughts:

could it have swarmed? any chance queen cells missed?

or

queen accidently killed 2 weeks or so back - did you inspect then? was BIAS present last week or just all capped?

 

[Sussex Bees]

First inspection was one week ago, It was only really a quicky to check for stores, but I did see the queen last week. So couldn't be sure on all stages of brood.

Didn't see any queen cells.

 

[Sussex Bees]

just thought I'd put an update on here for anyone who's interested, there does seem to be a few beeks in a similar predicament. I ought to add I'm still quite new to this lark and that some of the more hard core beeks on here will probably say that they aren't worth bothering with, but I can't just give up on them at the moment.

So, I next checked the hive on Monday 16th, still no sign of any brood.My hive which is queenright is quite tetchy, you'd think it'd be t'other way around.

I decided to source a imported mated queen, from a local supplier, which I picked up yesterday, with a view to requeen either colony.

It was warmish today so took my new queen and attendants to the apiary. The broodless colony now has brood but it looks like it is mainly drones. The good colony is still tetchy bordering on evil. I made up a four frame nuc, 2 brood, 2 stores sprayed with a thin syrup laced with vanilla essence with my new caged queen in the middle.

I'm presuming I now have a DLQ, but will have another look next week weather dependent.

 

[tonybloke]

just thought I'd put an update on here for anyone who's interested, there does seem to be a few beeks in a similar predicament. I ought to add I'm still quite new to this lark and that some of the more hard core beeks on here will probably say that they aren't worth bothering with, but I can't just give up on them at the moment.

So, I next checked the hive on Monday 16th, still no sign of any brood.My hive which is queenright is quite tetchy, you'd think it'd be t'other way around.

I decided to source a imported mated queen, from a local supplier, which I picked up yesterday, with a view to requeen either colony.

It was warmish today so took my new queen and attendants to the apiary. The broodless colony now has brood but it looks like it is mainly drones. The good colony is still tetchy bordering on evil. I made up a four frame nuc, 2 brood, 2 stores sprayed with a thin syrup laced with vanilla essence with my new caged queen in the middle.

I'm presuming I now have a DLQ, but will have another look next week weather dependent.

sounds good to me, but why the vanilla in the syrup?

 

[Sussex Bees]

The vanilla is suggested by the supplier, I guess it masks the scent of the new queen.

 

[BBG]

The vanilla is suggested by the supplier, I guess it masks the scent of the new queen.

That's PK - one of the best - follow what he says.

Ref Queen piping - put your ear to hive and listen a minute or so - we had four nucs all with Queens piping. It's a peeppeepeepeep or quarking sound.

 

[REDWOOD]

sounds like someone trying to play a french horn badly in one key

 

[Mike a]

Piping

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/video.php?do=viewdetails&videoid=76

or

Go to about 07:18
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/video.php?do=viewdetails&videoid=122

 

[Sussex Bees]

New queen nuc made up on 27/4

Checked in on it 5 days later and the queen had been released. I also removed the DLQ from other colony.

The weather has been poor since, but had a quick look today no sign of any eggs or new brood in the nuc but the queen is there still, but not many bees.

I,m not sure what to do next, the plan was to eventually unite this lot with other colony replacing DLQ.

Maybe Swap positions of the nuc and Q- colony to boost nuc numbers?