What does an un mated queen look like

[idg]

I have a nuc that has over wintered. It was late to develop before winter and small going into winter. There are 2-3 frames of bees in there, and during my inspection today, I saw some good areas of capped brood, some bias and some good areas of eggs. There were also some areas of messy drone brood. As there are not many bees I had a good look for the queen. I didn't see a queen as I was expecting, but I did see a bee that could have been a small queen. She was about the size of a worker, but had less of the striped coloration, and her abdomen was more slender and pointed.
Do you think this could have been the queen? A poorly mated queen?
If she was unmated, would there be any capped brood, or would it be all drone?
The next question is what to do with the hive?

 

[Finman]

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If queen is small, it derives from emercengy cell and it is normally mated.
You may buy a good queen now and change that it. You have nuc there now.

Reduce the bee room to the size what bees can keep warm. Close mesh floor.

 

[enrico]

Yep, an unmated queen looks just like that. Sounds like a poor late season mating. You have no hives in your description so not sure what you actually do have. I would suggest killing the queen and combining if you have another hive. If not then as Finman says, consider buying one in.
E

 

[Finman]

That meshy drone brood. They are better to cut off and harvest mites


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[Finman]

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Poorly mated queen does not affect on size of queen.
If nuc is small, queen lays as much as it has free cells there.

 

[idg]

Yep, an unmated queen looks just like that. Sounds like a poor late season mating. You have no hives in your description so not sure what you actually do have. I would suggest killing the queen and combining if you have another hive. If not then as Finman says, consider buying one in.
E

If she really was "un mated" would I get any normal brood at all? I have other hives to work with.

 

[Davelin]

No.

If there is some worker brood she must have mated. She may be poorly mated or sometimes a new queen takes a while to work out the knack of laying fertilized eggs.

If it were me I'd be inclined to leave them for a bit and see what happens. She may well up her laying in time, or if the colony is not happy then they may supersede her.

 

[idg]

Yep, an unmated queen looks just like that. Sounds like a poor late season mating. You have no hives in your description so not sure what you actually do have. I would suggest killing the queen and combining if you have another hive. If not then as Finman says, consider buying one in.
E

As it's still a bit early to get a mated queen, I dont think I have much to lose by giving her a few more weeks.

 

[midnight sun]

As it's still a bit early to get a mated queen, I dont think I have much to lose by giving her a few more weeks.

Personally I'd be looking for eggs to see what the last dates of laying were and compare this to the normal ratio of 1:2:4 of BAIS . That would give you some time scale of events and give you a better clue of what is taking place. (This is in addition to the advice you have already been given)

 

[enrico]

It was your description of the queen that was worrying me but patience is always a good place to start!
E

 

[dexter's shed]

don't take this the wrong way, but I think lots of newbies check out hives and worry about nothing, or find things to worry about for the sake of it, if the bees are flying and bringing in pollen, you have BIAS and some drone, it sounds to me that the bees know what they are doing, but your not so sure, leave them alone for a few weeks

 

[Finman]

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What what what

A small nuc and a queen from last summer.
Small size like a worker. I bet that it is poorly feeded emergency queen cell because it was reared in the nuc.
Now nuc has 3 frames of bees, which is minimum size.


Now gang invented that it is poorly mated, just started to lay (8 months ago).
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I think that experience is missing from that gang.

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