This beekeeping lark keeps you on your toes!

[sgeek]

May I ask the combined experience on this thread some advice and confirmation (again!)

first year noob.

I did an inspection last Monday after a 10 day gap. (weather/family/work and long weekend away is my feeble excuse).

Intended to check stores level, development progress prior to starting apiguard treatment this weekend. Hive had been growing well. 2012 queen - Carnolian.

What a pleasant surprise to find 9+ emergency queen cell and for some reason no stores apparently left. No Eggs, a few Larvae visible and only capped brood. Food, eggs, larvae and capped brood were all present a last inspection. QC were charged with Larvae floating on white liquid (assumed to be Royal Jelly)

After initial heart stopping panic :-( decided to act. Decided that original queen had either swarmed, died or been accidently killed by me at last inspection (QC not capped yet). Removed all but 2 of the larger QC.
I am thinking it is the latter 2 reasons for the queen apparently gone as the bee numbers do not appear to be diminished. Lots of Bees pinging off then hanging onto the veil was a interesting and unverving experience!
I also took the opportunity to check for large numbers of dead bees around the entrance/base of hive and look for signs of disease. Nothing apparently untoward found.
After getting home and checking my reference books, notes and this forum I think I did the right thing.


Can I ask the forum what their opinion of chances that any new queens will be able to mate at this apparent late stage of the season? Or should I cut my losses and try to purchase a mated queen? I just can't seem to find any definitive advice anywhere on how late mating may take place

I also added a 1/1 mix of sugar and water to deal with the stores.

Moving forward to today. Inspected again. 4 cells now capped (obviously missed 2) stores appear to be replenished and bees were really unhappy.
removed feeder.

If worst comes to worst I shall talk to the other noob I share the allotment apiary with and tell him to prepare to merge to get some additional workers in his hive.

By heck, it keeps you on your toes this beekeeping lark! Glad I did my intro course, just wish that I could recall every single thing the instructor said

 

[chrismcd]

It's supposed to be fun

Hi Sgeek,

Sounds like you are doing your best.

Queens often get superceded at this time of year, so there should be some drones still around.

Unless they are really manic Carniolans I would hope that they would not swarm now, so I would let them decide which queen to keep.

How many "frames" of bees do you reckon you still have? If there are more than about five I would see whether you can feed them up to get through the winter.

Hope this is of some help/encouragement - You never know your luck

 

[ellypatt]

Are you sure the queen's gone? If there are still lots of bees she may still be there and not have swarmed yet. Queens often (usually?) stop laying before swarming as they slim down to fly so no eggs does not necessarily mean no queen. Whoops - just realised that that was last Monday, so she probably has gone now either way... good luck! We may be in for an Indian summer which would help with mating chances.

 

[oliver90owner]

If there were no capped queen cells, she was likely still there on Monday.

If the queen had been killed at the last inspection cell would have been capped by then, so unlikely to be emergency cells.

That number tends to indicate swarming; could you tell the difference between emergency/swarm/supercedure cells? No young brood/eggs is a worry, so difficult to make a good diagnosis on the information given.

You have likely done the best you can. Plenty of time if the colony is strong IF the weather is good for a long autumn, but....

A new laying queen is another option. Would save time.

No comment on the feeding - no idea of actual stores levels and how much has been fed theis week.

 

[itma]

...
After getting home and checking my reference books, notes and this forum I think I did the right thing.
...

Did you happen to come across recommendations to download the excellent welsh queen cells booklet?
http://www.wbka.com/pdf/a012queencells.pdf

 

[sgeek]

All, Many thanks for the advice, guidance and references.

I managed to get an experienced keeper to take a quick look yesterday. He believes it is emergency cells (Itma, thank you for that excellent pamphlet link would have confirmed what I originally thought for me a lot earlier). A case now of let nature take its course.

Lessons have been learned so the experience cannot be entirely bad.

The more I see, read about and discover the more interesting this gets........