When is queenless...actually queenless?

[Tremyfro]

I have a colony ....it made QCs....Took down the QCs. Q still laying in lower box. Did a vertical A/S. Made an upper entrance for upper box. Put cover board between them. Upper box made more QCs. Took some QCs to put in Nucs and took down the rest.
Q still laying in lower box. Removed to nuc.
Next inspection...took down further QCs. No eggs seen ...no open brood.
Next inspection...1 queen cell...charged. Taken down.
Do you think the colony will now be queenless?

 

[For want of a better word]

Sarcastic comment would be that with all that interference one would not be surprised!

You used the Cloake Board method to make bees produce queen cell in first instance.
Bees still in swarm mode despite the AS so produced more queen cells in the lower box, are you sure you did not have a virgin queen in the bottom box when you removed the queen to a nuc?
I presume that you now with to unite the colony and use it a a queenless cell starter, or to use the brood to restock other queenless starter boxes?
To utilise the brood supply system you need some very strong colonies as brood providers and attenuate the brood frame for five days above a queen excluder within the brood provider colony to make sure bees can not have larvae young enough to bring on queens.

Yeghes da

 

[Tremyfro]

Sarcastic comment would be that with all that interference one would not be surprised!

You used the Cloake Board method to make bees produce queen cell in first instance.
Bees still in swarm mode despite the AS so produced more queen cells in the lower box, are you sure you did not have a virgin queen in the bottom box when you removed the queen to a nuc?
I presume that you now with to unite the colony and use it a a queenless cell starter, or to use the brood to restock other queenless starter boxes?
To utilise the brood supply system you need some very strong colonies as brood providers and attenuate the brood frame for five days above a queen excluder within the brood provider colony to make sure bees can not have larvae young enough to bring on queens.

Yeghes da

Ah..I think you have misunderstood. Perhaps I didn't explain very well. The interference you imply are only the usual weekly inspections...apart from when we needed to shake the bees off the comb to look for QCs.
The original colony got big and made some QCs. We decided to do a vertical A/S.
We put a brood box of foundation, plus the queen on her comb on the bottom. She had the flyers. We put all the brood above a cover board with a top entrance. There were no queen cells in the lower box. They never made any queen cells in the new lower box only in the upper box. We removed the queen cells from the upper box at each weekly inspection. Although, I can't be absolutely sure a sneaky one didn't manage to make a queen...I don't think they did. Over the weeks they made fewer QCs. The bees in the lower box built out the comb and the queen was laying. We removed the queen prior to combining via the newspaper method. All went well. There were a number of frames not in use so we reduced back down to one brood box. I don't think we had a virgin in there. We gave them some eggs from another hive...they made some more QCs. So I'm thinking they are queenless. We can't find any eggs...the bees are filling the brood box with nectar. They still have some frames of sealed brood.

 

[Brigsy]

Surely they could have only made queen cells in the upper box for 6-7 days?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Yes Brigsey you are right

 

[Obee1]

Sarcastic comment would be that with all that interference one would not be surprised!


Yeghes da

Good job you're not one to make a sarcastic comment then, eh!

 

[Obee1]

Tremy. Do you think giving them eggs from another hive allowed them to make QC and keep swarm plans on their agendas? I gave my non laying super bee queen colonies some more bias to keep em going. I wonder if that gave them the means to replace the iffy queens and therefore do away with them. Maybe they'd have given the queens more time if I'd not given eggs. Another thing to add to my list of 'won't be doing that again'!

 

[Tremyfro]

When I combined them there were eggs from the original queen in the lower box. As I thought a virgin may have been swanning around the top box...I removed the original queen to a nuc for safe keeping. That was 3 weeks ago. They continued to make QCs out of the eggs from the lower box. We reduced the boxes to one. There was an open QC in there yesterday...I didn't see a larvae but there was plenty of Royal jelly in there. I don't see where they would have got a larvae from after so long unless there is a queen in there...which they don't like ...which is laying an occasional egg!
We did do a fairly thorough egg search and didn't see any. Obviously missed some. Now they are filling the brood chamber up with nectar.

 

[madasafish]

Laying worker..Bees desperate.. QC results.

 

[For want of a better word]

So simple answer would be Yes.. or possibly No... bit like the answer to the question of what is the confidence " p" value for improbability?
Or square root of minus 1 ??

Yeghes da

 

[Tremyfro]

So simple answer would be Yes.. or possibly No... bit like the answer to the question of what is the confidence " p" value for improbability?
Or square root of minus 1 ??

Yeghes da

Singularly unhelpful Icanhopit...and I know you can do better...much better.
I have a queen waiting to go in the colony.
Are laying workers a real possibility?
Do they make queen cells from larvae of laying workers?
If there was a queen in there but just not laying yet...would they still make queen cells? And from what?

 

[B+.]

Do they make queen cells from larvae of laying workers?
If there was a queen in there but just not laying yet...would they still make queen cells? And from what?

Watch Michael Palmers video (https://youtu.be/RX3BgnOkozs). Their reaction to the queen will tell you what their response will be.
Laying workers produce unfertilised eggs (i.e. drones). If they did try to make a queen from them, they would never survive

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

laying workers produce unfertilised eggs (i.e. drones). If they did try to make a queen from them, they would never survive

They still try though

 

[B+.]

They still try though

So...introduce the queen under a push-in cage, keep an eye on the colony for a week or so and destroy any cells they raise.

 

[Tremyfro]

So...introduce the queen under a push-in cage, keep an eye on the colony for a week or so and destroy any cells they raise.

Thanks B+.
A plan...

 

[For want of a better word]

Singularly unhelpful Icanhopit...and I know you can do better...much better.
I have a queen waiting to go in the colony.
Are laying workers a real possibility?
Do they make queen cells from larvae of laying workers?
If there was a queen in there but just not laying yet...would they still make queen cells? And from what?

Ever heard of a test frame?
May bee worth a try?

Nos da

 

[Obee1]

Ever heard of a test frame?
May bee worth a try?

Nos da

But will a test frame work if there are laying workers?

Btw tremy laying workers are easy to diagnose usually. There will be more than one egg per cell - supposedly not at the bottom but mine laid many eggs and some were at the bottom! Some cells had six or seven eggs. I don't think you have them.

 

[Tremyfro]

But will a test frame work if there are laying workers?

Btw tremy laying workers are easy to diagnose usually. There will be more than one egg per cell - supposedly not at the bottom but mine laid many eggs and some were at the bottom! Some cells had six or seven eggs. I don't think you have them.

The colony is eggless...multiples or otherwise...zilch...most of the brood frames are being filled with nectar.
So I don't think I have laying workers either.
I haven't put in a test frame as yet because up until the last inspection they were still making QCs.

 

[Tremyfro]

Ever heard of a test frame?
May bee worth a try?

Nos da

Yes it was my intention to add a test frame...I have used test frames in the past...but as they had made one more queen cell when we inspected them..which we weren't expecting...we decided to leave them and go away to ask some questions. I am just trying to identify a plan for the next inspection as I have a mated queen waiting to go in this colony.

 

[For want of a better word]

Yes it was my intention to add a test frame...I have used test frames in the past...but as they had made one more queen cell when we inspected them..which we weren't expecting...we decided to leave them and go away to ask some questions. I am just trying to identify a plan for the next inspection as I have a mated queen waiting to go in this colony.

Stop faffing about and run her in!

Try placing the new queen in an introduction cage atop the frames... bees will cease to growl and as they investigate her will climb all over the intro cage.
I sometimes have put up to six queens in cages on top of the frames of a howling queenless colony and allowed the bees to pick their new leader... most bees on intro cage wins... bit like a Tory membership election!

Good luck

Yeghes da