Will they still draw cells?

[Do224]

A bit convoluted so bear with me. I had to do an artificial swarm on a db colony today. Having nuc’d the queen with a couple of frames I went through the original hive and found 12 frames of brood...the rest of the frames either empty or with some stores. So I decided to condense them down into a single bb and then supered them. This left me with one surplus frame of brood. The colony next door had a virgin emerge on 19th June which I’m waiting to get mated. I found an empty frame in that hive and replaced it with the frame of brood I had left over from the other hive. The frame has bias so I’m just wondering if they’ll draw cells on it, given that they likely have a virgin queen? I’m thinking they won’t but thought I’d double check otherwise I’d probably be opening them up again in s few days to make sure.

 

[Curly green finger's]

A bit convoluted so bear with me. I had to do an artificial swarm on a db colony today. Having nuc’d the queen with a couple of frames I went through the original hive and found 12 frames of brood...the rest of the frames either empty or with some stores. So I decided to condense them down into a single bb and then supered them. This left me with one surplus frame of brood. The colony next door had a virgin emerge on 19th June which I’m waiting to get mated. I found an empty frame in that hive and replaced it with the frame of brood I had left over from the other hive. The frame has bias so I’m just wondering if they’ll draw cells on it, given that they likely have a virgin queen? I’m thinking they won’t but thought I’d double check otherwise I’d probably be opening them up again in s few days to make sure.

More than likely they’ll just feed the bias and cape it of, check in three days.
In the morning if
You can you will see if there are cells drawn but I very much doubt it.

 

[Do224]

More than likely they’ll just feed the bias and cape it of, check in three days.
In the morning if
You can you will see if there are cells drawn but I very much doubt it.

Checked this frame today and it was full of capped cells. No idea what to think. Tore the cells down

 

[Do224]

Should I assume this hive is queenless based on what has happened? Virgin emerged on 19th so surely they shouldn’t be drawing cells now regardless of whether or not she’s mated.

 

[Sutty]

Should I assume this hive is queenless based on what has happened? Virgin emerged on 19th so surely they shouldn’t be drawing cells now regardless of whether or not she’s mated.

Did you see a freshly vacated queen cell at any point?
A couple of possibilities come to mind: she never emerged and the bees took down the cells, or she failed to return from a mating flight.

 

[Do224]

Did you see a freshly vacated queen cell at any point?
A couple of possibilities come to mind: she never emerged and the bees took down the cells, or she failed to return from a mating flight.

Yes, emerged queen cell seen on 19th (it was still capped on 18th). This seemed very late for emergence though as the queen was nuc’d on 1st.

Could it have been a duff queen cell that was eventually uncapped by workers and was empty all along?

Is it safe to say they are queenless now? I guess the frame I put in acted like a test frame and confirmed there is no queen? If so, I have a q+ nuc I could combine with them

 

[Sutty]

Sounds like they are queenless

 

[Do224]

Sounds like they are queenless

They’ve got two supers on. I want to combine with a q+ nuc. Do I just put newspaper and a qx over the top super then transfer the nuc to a bb and put that on top?

Then wait three days before dismantling and condensing everything back down to double brood and two supers?

 

[Erichalfbee]

They’ve got two supers on. I want to combine with a q+ nuc. Do I just put newspaper and a qx over the top super then transfer the nuc to a bb and put that on top?

Yes but remember to remove the test frame if there are larvae viable enough to make more queen cells while uniting

 

[user 819]

Sometimes a colony even with a VQ may still draw cells as insurance unitl the VQ is laying, thoyugh as indicated one needs to be able to confirm whethe rthey are QL or not first.

 

[Do224]

Sometimes a colony even with a VQ may still draw cells as insurance unitl the VQ is laying, thoyugh as indicated one needs to be able to confirm whethe rthey are QL or not first.

Well rightly or wrongly I’ve combined them with a q+ nuc now. Perhaps I should have waited longer then