Hi all,
I am a new beekeeper and new to the forum.
I am having a problem with my new hive. 4 weeks ago my hive swarmed, leaving me with half the bees and some capped queen cells. Since then the queens have emerged and I waited 21 days from swarming to see if the new queen had mated and was laying. She was not laying so last Sunday i added a frame of brood to them from my girlfriends hive. I checked them yesterday (Tuesday) and they had started to make emergency queen cells. I thought to myself ok so there is no queen so the busy bees are making a new one, all is not lost. But then I spotted new eggs randomly spotted around the frames either side of my added brood frame. The eggs were mainly singles but a few had two eggs in. I am now confused, do I have;
1. A mated queen that is newly laying randomly, and emergency queen cells?
2. A laying worker, and emergency queen cells? or
3. an unmated queen, and emergency queen cells?
I was hoping to go back into the hive on Friday to get a better idea of what is going on but with all the thunder storms at the moment that seems unlikely can anyone advise as to what is going on. I have sort of resigned myself to losing the hive but if I can save it then great.
I am a new beekeeper and new to the forum.
I am having a problem with my new hive. 4 weeks ago my hive swarmed, leaving me with half the bees and some capped queen cells. Since then the queens have emerged and I waited 21 days from swarming to see if the new queen had mated and was laying. She was not laying so last Sunday i added a frame of brood to them from my girlfriends hive. I checked them yesterday (Tuesday) and they had started to make emergency queen cells. I thought to myself ok so there is no queen so the busy bees are making a new one, all is not lost. But then I spotted new eggs randomly spotted around the frames either side of my added brood frame. The eggs were mainly singles but a few had two eggs in. I am now confused, do I have;
1. A mated queen that is newly laying randomly, and emergency queen cells?
2. A laying worker, and emergency queen cells? or
3. an unmated queen, and emergency queen cells?
I was hoping to go back into the hive on Friday to get a better idea of what is going on but with all the thunder storms at the moment that seems unlikely can anyone advise as to what is going on. I have sort of resigned myself to losing the hive but if I can save it then great.
