When is it too late for a virgin Q to mate successfully.

[Jules59]

The back story is Blue Q colony was a successful colony - decides to swarm, despite double brood & 3 supers.
I performed an artificial swarm into a nuc.
Old colony with new Q did well, so I hived the Blue Q (brood + super) .
But later Blue Q swarmed again (caught me out) - I managed to catch her & swarm and put them in another nuc.
My plan was to unite swarmed colony, after eradicating "swarmy" blue Q, back to the colony they had just swarmed from once I'd checked the new Q was OK.
I was going to unite via the paper method.

But upon starting the procedure, I found the newly marked White Q (2nd one) was now absent, no eggs, and early emergency Q cells were being built. The White Q had been seen 4 days previously and marked. Did marking her upset her bees so they killed her ?

Should I continue with the uniting, remove the all the QCs, and put up with the "swarmy" blue Q over winter -she has been a good layer ?
OR
Should I let them get on with making a new Q and hope she mates in late August, or is it too late in the season to expect a good mating result?

 

[elainemary]

Sadly can happen Jules, same thing happened to me earlier in the season,except made a nuc up with Q cell at same time I did the swarm control. So i had new white queen in parent colony plus new white queen in Nuc. Marked both queens. Came back following week and found dead marked queen in parent colony and emergency cells. I concluded it was probably down to marking, but who knows?? I then newspaper united the queen in the Nuc (I now do this as a contingency, so just mentioning as one for the future maybe)
If it was me, I would unite your blue queen back at this stage in the season. Things can go wrong with mating and at least she can get on with making winter bees for the colony & have a good chance of getting through the winter. Then I'd requeen next year.
Elaine

 

[Ian123]

I’m grafting tomorrow plenty of time yet.

 

[Patrick1]

We have an obsession with early queens, I will not finish rearing queens for another two weeks or so, lots of drones about this time of year and this is the most important part of the equation.

Don’t forget supersedure can go o through September, usually these are good queens in the spring.

 

[Ian123]

We have an obsession with early queens, I will not finish rearing queens for another two weeks or so, lots of drones about this time of year and this is the most important part of the equation.

Don’t forget supersedure can go o through September, usually these are good queens in the spring.

Ah but Patrick in a recent post we are told by some Wally late season queens are poor

 

[Patrick1]

Ah but Patrick in a recent post we are told by some Wally late season queens are poor

Who would say such a thing

 

[Curly green finger's]

Ive got cells emerging over the next few days and next week.
Im going to hopefully graft from my old girl if she lays any more eggs next week. And that will be me done for the season, still drones around a plenty in my neck of the woods.
To the op if you have drones around there's putential for matings, but possibly your safest bet would be to remove the emergency cell and unite.
@Patrick1 by looking at the superseded cells I have they are well made and have been selected and slowly fed unlike emergency cells which seem to be small and rushed..

 

[Jules59]

Thanks everyone. I have had another look - the Q cells look a bit rubbish to me; relatively small and smooth walled compared to usual "peanut shell" one usually sees. So Ive reunited with good ol' Blue and will see how they get on over winter.
At least I won't need to wait with bated breath; hoping a virgin Q's day of freedom goes well.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I have noticed that my sort-of-Buckfasty bees have cranky offspring if mated very late. I put that down to "hardier" native drones being on the wing then: a notoriously cranky hybrid. That aside, I would say you are fine at LEAST until ivy is flowering, personally.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

There are often decent days in September for mating.

 

[oliver90owner]

Should I let them get on with making a new Q and hope she mates in late August, or is it too late in the season to expect a good mating result?

Dunno on your particular situation, but two things are needed for good mating late in the season (apart from a good ‘still-in date’ virgin queen). 1) A couple or three consecutive days with suitable temperatures for mating and 2) drones on the wing.

‘One day’ mating is more likely to produce a queen which runs out of sperm sooner than expected, or hoped for.

Do the bees care? No - because all they want to do is to survive. If she expires early, they will supercede.

 

[REDWOOD]

Thanks everyone. I have had another look - the Q cells look a bit rubbish to me; relatively small and smooth walled compared to usual "peanut shell" one usually sees. So Ive reunited with good ol' Blue and will see how they get on over winter.
At least I won't need to wait with bated breath; hoping a virgin Q's day of freedom goes well.

Emergency QC do look different as they are usually made from older Larvae