What would you do? Opinions please.

[Cazza]

Hi all
I have an unwanted colony which was a caste collected on 3rd June. My plan was to combine it with another so the idea today was to cull the queen and then combine later this evening.

When last inspected things were chugging along (5 frames brood), nothing very impressive, hence the decision to cull and keep better queens.

This afternoon despite looking twice, (I'm usually good at spotting queens) no queen to be seen, no eggs, no larvae and 3 supercedure cells, capped.

Would you assume queen is deceased and combine or wait a few days and check again?

Ta in advance for your thoughts.

Cazza

 

[tidymeup]

I would make sure you didn't have a queen for sure before combining otherwise you could very well loose both.

 

[Poly Hive]

Remove cells: add test frame and check in three days. No overall loss and time spent in double checking will pay off.

PH

 

[Midland Beek]

Would you assume queen is deceased

Certainly not.

 

[Dishmop]

Would you assume queen is deceased

Anwser:-
Certainly not.

Monty Python anyone?

 

[Cazza]

Remove cells: add test frame and check in three days. No overall loss and time spent in double checking will pay off.

PH

That's exactly what I've done but then I thought, if they raise QC's, couldn't it just be that the queen is still there but ropey and they want to supercede her?
C