Unmated Virgin?

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MJBee

Drone Bee
Joined
Dec 4, 2008
Messages
1,812
Reaction score
1
Location
Dordogne 24360 France
Hive Type
Commercial
Number of Hives
16 a mix of Commercial, National, 14 x 12, Dadant and a Warre
I know of a colony that had a virgin queen that eventually produced a small area of eggs on two frames - great we thought she has finally mated and come into lay. unfortunately 7 days later there are no more eggs and the ones from last week are all sealed DRONE:(
A replacement queen will not be available for a while so if a test frame proves the colony queenless we plan to unite with a queenright colony. - will there be any problems if:-
a. There is a drone laying queen even if she has only laid 100 or so eggs.
b. There is a laying worker.
:cheers2: Mike
 
This happened to me - a drone laying queen - so I did shook swarm in the middle of the garden - and there she was a big fat useless lady on the lawn.The rest of the colony flew back to the original site into the original hive -minus brood. I left them 24 hours then put in a frame with eggs and 1 day larvae - and they made a new queen. Takes time, which is a nuisance at this time of the year -if you can buy a queen - better option.
I would definitely make it queenless before requeening - even a dodgy queen can fight
 

Latest posts

Back
Top