This week's panic

[bpmurray]

Just checked the hives. I shouldn't have - it wouyld have been a more pleasant evening otherwise.

Of 4 hives, 3 are now hopelessly queenless and there are no eggs in the fourth. I thought I had 2 OK queens in apideas, but one isn't there and the other doesn't quite understand the idea of laying. In a lunatic feat of panic, I put her into one hive - if it works, great. Otherwise I'll be no better.

My plans are to unite the apparently good hive with one of the not too well ones. But I just don't know what to do otherwise.

 

[Erichalfbee]

But I just don't know what to do otherwise.

Simple
Buy some mated queens

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

On what grounds are they "hopelessly queenless"? Hivemaker reckons MORE THAN HALF of the Qs he sends out are killed by an incumbent.

I share your pain on Apideas. My (highly successful) experiment died when they pushed down the QE and beed off...

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

What is the basis for you declaring them 'hopelessly queenless'; without us dredging through your previous posts, maybe you could give us a brief history of each hive - might help you to get things in perspective as well

 

[bpmurray]

History of the hives: In the first week of May, I performed an AS on each of my 2 overwintered hives, both of which had QC's. The two queens had been going well, but the splits didn't work: one drew down QCs on a frame of BIAS, and one of these hatched on June 13, but I couldn't see her and there are no eggs/larvae/brood, so I fear the worst; the other was a drone-layer and I successfully recovered that (it's the only one that seems queen right now, with plenty of brood but not many eggs. One of the original queens vanished and I kept a single sealed QC there but it just hasn't emerged (sealed on June 19). The last hive had a queen last week, but she's gone and there are no eggs or larvae.

So, I have 3 hives with no eggs or larvae, and one with very few eggs. I'm going to wait another week before doing anything extreme, but I think my approach will be to unite the 2 split hives, and to get new queens for the other 2 hives.

 

[bingevader]

I'm not sure May was great for new queens this year.
We've got one that's in the process of being superceded.
She looks like a big, fine beasty, but just isn't laying much and the workers are obviously giving up on her!
As the others have said, are you sure the queens have gone?
One of our other hives seemed to go off laying for a week or so, in that time we didn't find a queen, she must have been there, or at least, taking a holiday, because there are eggs there now.
Does the one hive have enough eggs to share with one of the other hives?
You'd find out if it was really queenless that way too, as they'd start an emergency queen cell if there was no queen.

 

[Thymallus]

May was bloody awful in North Yorkshire for virgin queen mating. All but one of mine were either drone layers or splutteres and the only (what appeared to be) half decent ones are currently being superceded. Been better the last few weeks.

 

[Erichalfbee]

May was bloody awful in North Yorkshire for virgin queen mating. All but one of mine were either drone layers or splutteres

Yep......same here.
One a drone Layer,
The other colony gifted to a friend now being re-queened with an Exmoor Buckie.

 

[BeeJayBee]

... one drew down QCs on a frame of BIAS, and one of these hatched on June 13, but I couldn't see her and there are no eggs/larvae/brood, so I fear the worst;

A queen emerges from the queen cell on day 16 - timed from when the egg was laid.

She will mature by about day 20, and be ready to take mating flights from around day 25.

She will start to lay about 5-7 days after mating, which could be from day 30ish and could be later, depending on local weather conditions.

Your queen emerged on 13 June, her egg should have been laid 16 days earlier - 29th May? You should be looking for eggs around 7th July at the earliest. If you open a colony containing a newly mated queen too often, or too soon, you can lose her because they can be quite flighty.

Check this for the timetable http://www.thebeeyard.org/cgi-bin/queencalendar.pl?month=6&day=1&year=2015 It's designed for grafting, but should help you with the dates.

 

[bpmurray]

Thanks BJ - that's an excellent calendar. I think I need to not panic - I've had so many problems this season that it's my default reaction now. I think I need to wait another week before freaking.

 

[thedaidai]

Agree with the comments about May being a very bad month for queen mating in blustery and cool North Yorkshire.
I ended up with 2 drone laying queens, 1 with laying workers and 2 which went AWOL. June was much better and now have 6 laying queens and 3 more virgins who should start any time.

 

[drex]

Not any better results here in East Anglian. Got a nice bunch of DLQ's.

 

[Cazza]

Not any better results here in East Anglian. Got a nice bunch of DLQ's.

Not in my little East Anglian paradise. My bees have reared some lovely new queens, with improved tempers and laying well.
Cazza

 

[bpmurray]

Using the calendar BeeJayBee's so kindly pointed me to, I checked the hives this evening. Things are much less panicked now.

• Hive 1 is good - not loads of eggs, but a few, with plenty of sealed brood and a few unsealed. This is in 2 brood boxes, but loads of honey in these and nothing in the super.
• Hive 2 was requeened from the apidea, and she should have started laying and there are a few patchy eggs - I suppose she's just starting. A half super with one more just in case. I saw the queen this evening, so she's definitely still there.
• Hive 3 was the healthy one, brought back from the brink of catastrophe with a drone-layer and now the brood box is full of brood and honey, but nothing in the super.
• Hive 4 is the problem child. I thought it had a queen but there are no eggs so I suppose something must have happened to her. Just to check I have given them a frame of BIAS. BTW, this hive is very aggressive. They drew out the super but nothing stored.
• And I still have an apidea where HRH has laid eggs - nothing hatched or anything as wild as that, but it looks good nonetheless.

This gives rise to my 2 questions:

• I'd like to verify that the queen in hive 2 is laying - is Saturday too early to check (3-4 days)? If there are no eggs, should I squish her and give them the spare apidea queen?
• If hive 4 draws down queen cells, they're queenless and have been so for so long that I don't hold out much hope for them. Similarly, if there are no eggs, the queen is a dud so I suppose she'll have to go, particularly given their aggression. If either of these is the case, should I unite them with hive 3? If there are eggs, the population is very old - would another frame of brood help?

There probably are simpler solutions, but this is what I managed to get to!

 

[BeeJayBee]

What are the timings for hive 4?

Ditto hive 2?
How long was she in the apidea, when did she start laying in it? etc.

 

[bpmurray]

What are the timings for hive 4?

Ditto hive 2?
How long was she in the apidea, when did she start laying in it? etc.

Hive 4 has been queenless since the AS in early May, although it's had 3 frames of BIAS to try to bring it back.

Hive 2 had eggs on 9th June, but none since. Shortly after that they started with QC's, and I suspect that they did actually try to swarm but the clipped queen fell into the grass and they returned to the hive. It still has the most gorgeous QC but it just never hatched. The queen I added was from the same batch that all emerged on 13th June, so starting to lay now is really about right - perhaps a little late but not by much. She was in the apidea from 13 June to 1 July.

The queen currently in the apidea has also just started laying, and she's a 13 June emerger too, so it looks like their genes are for a slow start.