Think i might have messed up

[loving_allsorts]

I was down the allotment today and by the side of where I keep my bees I noticed a Swarm.

I assume it is mine. So I've boxed it and set up a spare hive ready to rehome it later when it starts to cool down.

I then inspected my hive which I assume the swarm was from and was supprised at just how busy and full it was.

Last year it swarmed but when I went into the hive it was nearly depleted of bees. I guess it had sent casts off as well.

As it seems the bees I have are 'Casty' I decided to go through the hive this time and remove all queen cells. I did so and drove them home. I sat down and then it hit me like a hammer.

What if the new queen in the cell was piping which sent the old queen off with a swarm. There is a chance I have now just entirely depleted my hive of queens by cuting all the queen cells out.

Does anybody know if the old queen only leaves once a new queen emerges or could it be I am now queenless?

I think there is a glimpse of light (although that is all it is) Once I got the queen cells home I put them in a pile (there were three of four and some comb I removed because it was in a bad position) in the sun while I thought about my predicament. One of the cell caps removed and out came a queen. There were also some workers walking around on the pile. they went to the queen and they started 'communicating' I put them in a small cardboard container with some comb which had a bit of honey in some of the cells.

Basically I have a queen should I need her.

MY questions are then:

1. IS there a high chance my hive is queenless?
2. IS there anything I can do with my queen in the cardboard container?
3. If I need to keep the queen in the container for a while until I find out if I have a queen in my hive.. how do I do that?

Many thanks

Mark

 

[VEG]

The old queen normally leaves in a swarm as soon as there are capped cells in the brood box. So if you destroyed the queen cells then it is highly likely they will be hopelessly queen less.
If you have access to a frame of eggs then put one in the old hive, they will then make a queen, you could of course unite the swarm but they may well swarm again.
You could go back and run the newly hatched queen into the hive entrance.

 

[enrico]

You should still have eggs in there so all is not lost... They will hopefully just make a new queen if they need one.

 

[VEG]

depends on if the queen stopped laying a few days before leaving

 

[loving_allsorts]

I guess I'm going to put the hatched queen in with them. Hopefully if I missed a queen cell when I looked they wont cast. We'll see I guess. I am such a NOOB!

 

[loving_allsorts]

nope, the hatched queen did not look very healthy when I took her out of the container. She really did not. I'm almost certain she wont make it. I gently pushed her into the enterance on a leaf. Guess now its just a waiting game.

Still, suppose it's a good learning curve.

 

[REDWOOD]

Hi, Sorry to hear about your predicament, did you see eggs in your hive when you removed the QC, if so let the bees sort things out if they are not happy with the new queen you put back in they will make new queen cells, if you did not see queen cells keep a check on the new queen, she might be OK once she has been fed.

Please download this link posted on the forum many times and is a real help to us novices and more experienced beekeepers
http://www.wbka.com/pdf/a012queencells.pdf

 

[victor meldrew]

depends on if the queen stopped laying a few days before leaving

An emergency cell can be made from 4 day old larvae of even older.
VM

 

[VEG]

As i said depends on how many days the queen stopped laying for.

 

[Black Comb]

An emergency cell can be made from 4 day old larvae of even older.
VM

Like your new avatar John.

 

[victor meldrew]

Memory prompt pinched from a blog posted on here
VM