re-queening a queenless hive - any hints and tips?

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re-queening a queenless hive - any hints and tips?

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chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 07 8:02 pm Post subject: re-queening a queenless hive - any hints and tips?

We went through two of our four hives this morning and one is VERY weak (about five frames), with no queen cells, worker brood or eggs.

It was in much the same state 2.5 weeks ago, and we tried to requeen by putting in a frame with eggs from another hive; but they don't seem to have made up a new queen from it. At least, although I went through very carefully, I couldn't see any sign of her. Is it possible that there could be virgin queen in the hive that hasn't yet mated because the wet weather has prevented them flying, and I just missed her?

The hive itself seemed very happy indeed and there weren't a huge number of drones, neither of which I understand would generally be the case with a queenless hive. They also had LOADS of honey stored in the brood chamber.

What should I do? Wait and see if there IS a young queen in there and whether I find eggs/larvae in a few days? Or find a frame of eggs from another hive and put it in? Or unite the small colony with a larger hive?

Any hints and tips, or just plain old speculation welcome at this point - I'm going to have a word with my local bee-guru later in the week and see what she says, but any input would be appreciated, even in a 'well, I've never done this myself, but ...' kind of way

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 07 8:12 pm Post subject:

Chez

I have a similar situation.

My big hive, that was artificially swarmed, and had the original Queen was going great guns. With all the rain I had not checked for 18 days.

This week there is a small amount of food, a whole brood box of calm bees, no visible Queen, no eggs and no brood.

The other hive, that was made from the artificial swarm has a new Queen, but only about 5 seams of bees, and some food.

This is what I am doing.

I figure
there maybe a virgin Queen that hasn't had an opportunity to mate yet, although she wouldn't be giving out pheromones, so am not sure why hive is so calm.
Or the orinial Queen is there, and has stopped laying.

I was thinking about getting them to raise a Queen from the weak hive, but that will leave them even weaker, which I don't really want to do, so I am considering combining the two hives, with the sheet of newspaper, and having a strong hive with food.

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 07 8:24 pm Post subject:

You only get large numbers of drones if you get laying workers or your virgin queen has hatched and has been unable to be mated due to the bad weather - she only has a smallish window of opportunity before she becomes a drone laying queen

A 5 frame colony isn't really all that weak - its the same size as a nucleus and one of those can over winter quite happily with a bit of feeding help

I don't know what to suggest though with regards your queen - it is possible that you couldn't find her because with the better weather the last couple of days - she was out on a mating flight

My instinct would be to say leave it another week and see what happens but maybe someone with a bit more experience than me - (which lets face it is anyone who has had bee's for more than a month!!) can give you some advice - I can't even find the queen in my own hive despite her being marked - yet I know she's there cos I've got frames and frames of sealed and unsealed brood and I've seen eggs but she's a right madam and because she's so young - is still quick as lightning

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 07 8:57 pm Post subject:
Comment from ignorance: Is it possible (with the weather being such rubbish) that the hives are just 'powered down' to conserve supplies? (And would that imply that a bit of feeding might be helpful?)

Camile

Joined: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 376
Location: Co. Galway - Ireland

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 07 7:52 am Post subject:
Good morning, I have even less experience than you jocorless because we're only getting ours hopefully some days this week because with the bad weather it kept on being postponed for weeks .. But a friend that keeps them started feeding them again because they are started to it a good part of their stored honey. Camile

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 07 8:05 am Post subject:

Re the 'powered down' thing - a possible explanation if they hadn't had stores - BUT, they have loads of beautifully capped honey, so they aren't going hungry and there isn't a starvation problem.

I have looked up in Ted Hooper and a queen takes 16 days to hatch and is ready to mate on day 20 - so if they did build up a queen out of the eggs we put in, she should be ready to fly today. However, we didn't see any queen cells, used or unused, yesterday.

We're just gearing up to go through our other couple of hives (including The Narky Hive, wish us luck!) and I think I am going to pop some more eggs / brood in there if the other hives are strong enough to lose them - it's kind of a fail-safe because they won't make the eggs up in to a queen if they already have one. Hopefully.

And if that fails, I guess it's Alison's recommendation with the newspaper. I DO so want to keep the fourth hive, though!

.

I'll keep you posted.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 07 8:19 am Post subject:

Chez wrote:

My limited (and non-practical) bee-knowledge made me wonder, NOT whether they might be starving, but rather that they might have gone into 'autumn-mode' prematurely. With little fresh material coming in, its probably good strategy to reduce the foraging resources, cut the workforce, and limit recruitment (fresh brood). Providing extra rations would be my guess as to how to break such a recession in the bee 'economy'. (Bloody Keynsian!)

And also, with the other similar reports, it does sound like something more general, and not limited to those specific hives/queens.

I (for one) will be interested to hear how all this works itself out.
Mysterious and wonderfully subtle creatures. Even if completely unsentimental!

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 07 8:19 am Post subject:

If you are going to do that - Don't use eggs from the Narky hive as the queen will be throwing off narky offspring - not something you want to encourage

One of the other members of the bee keeping course who already had bee's has had problems with her hives in the past and had a particularly narky queen meaning everytime she tried to go in the hive to examine it - the bee's there would be very very aggressive

Recently with the help of the course leaders with great difficulty she requeened the hive with a much calmer queen - Within days the colony was much more approachable and better behaved

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 07 9:41 am Post subject:

I think we ARE going to try to requeen the narky hive - but I thought that was a topic for another day

. They even sent a couple of Super Attack Bees out to chase us off today, as we were going through hive No. 4

.

So, result - loads of brood, both capped and uncapped, reasonably tempered bees and a very healthy hive, but I couldn't see either the queen or any eggs to take out and swap in to the small hive. I think it's just me being a bit crap, as I can't see how we can have THREE hives who have all suddenly lost their queen in the last five days.

To add to the interest, Arvo is still pretty frighted of the bees - he's doing really well for someone who has been phobic about stingy things since a bad experience as a toddler; but he's in the non-Haz-Mat suit with the non-integral veil (because I can't do it up) and it's not helping his confidence. We've ordered another of the head-to-foot suits from eBay for forty quid (Thornes charge �94!!!!!!) and I think that will help.

So I guess we wait a week, go in to the small hive and see if there's any brood or eggs and take it from there.

And one day next week we're going to have to go through the Narky Hive with thick jumpers under the bee-suits and just resign ourselves to being attacked.

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 07 1:20 pm Post subject:

Just an update:

We went in to the weak hive this morning and it's still in the same situation. So we opened up another strong, good-tempered hive, and this time have managed to identify a couple of frames with both worker brood (mostly capped) and I think, eggs, on them. So we've swapped them in to the weak hive.

Now we wait three weeks and see what happens - hopefully they will make one of the eggs up in to an 'emergency' queen cell and all will be well.

This afternoon, for an encore, we plan open The Narky Hive, wearing extra-thick long-johns

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