Author Topic: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive  (Read 2491 times)

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Offline Wandering Man

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Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« on: December 14, 2017, 10:19:47 am »
A few weeks ago I noticed the bees in this hive were more grumpy than my other two when I was adding a quart of syrup to the feeder.  Three days later and the feeders in the other two were empty, this hive had about 1/3 of syrup left and the girls were grumpy.

My feeders sit on the inner cover, and when I peeked into the cover's hole, I could see lots of bees.

Yesterday, I finally decided I needed to go ahead and take the hive apart and look at it.  I'm running two deeps to overwinter the bees.  The top deep had six or seven frames filled with uncapped nectar or syrup.  There were a lot of bees here.  I looked for the queen, even though I did not expect her to be in the upper body.  There was no capped brood and no larvae or eggs.  There were masses of bees where a queen could be hiding.

The second deep was pretty empty.  There were still plenty of bees, but not as many as in the top super.  There was a little bit of capped honey and some pollen.  There was no capped brood, no larvae, and no eggs.

I'm on my way out of town, but will be back on Sunday.  We are expecting a high of 71 on Monday with the rest of the week in the 60's, so Monday is the day I plan to look for the queen, paying more attention to the frames in the top deep.

Suggestions on what I should do if I still can't find a queen?

Do I split the frames among the other two hives?  Buy a queen from Hawaii?  Put a frame with brood in it into this hive (assuming there is brood to be had)?

Thanks.
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Offline Lburou

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2017, 11:35:41 am »
You can put a frame with a few eggs in this hive and check three days later for queen cells. 

No queen cells:  You probably have a viable queen.  If you see queen cells, the bees are telling you they want/need a queen.  You live in a very mild climate where queens can be mated almost year around.  If you see queen cells, feed both sugar syrup and pollen sub.  It may work, it may not.  That is part of a hobbyist's fun.  HTH   :)

P.S.  If you don't want to risk getting a queen mated this time of year, you can order a queen.  Either way, adding a frame of brood will tell you whether or not you need a queen.
Lee_Burough
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Offline Wandering Man

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2017, 01:42:59 pm »
Thanks!  I hadn't thought about "testing" the hive.
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Offline brooksbeefarm

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2017, 03:32:21 pm »
Like Lburou, said. Another thing you can do is after you put the frame of brood in the (maybe queenless hive?)close it up and wait 5 to 10 minutes, then open it up and look that frame over good. The pheromone  from that frame can draw the queen to it ready to fight the intruder if one is in the hive.  :yes: Jack
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Offline Bakersdozen

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2017, 05:40:24 am »
Lee and Jack, good advice.  Jack, I never thought of that possibility. Interesting.

Offline rober

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2017, 02:57:43 pm »
what jack said can sometimes work. I've drawn a queen out of a tree by adding brood to a trap-out.

Offline Wandering Man

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #6 on: December 28, 2017, 03:45:33 pm »
A follow-up here.

3Reds and I went back into the hive shortly after Lee suggested a frame of brood.  I looked again for a queen and did not see her.

I was relieved to find the queen in another hive.  At least I hadn't lost my "eye" for finding queens.

We also found a couple of frames of brood, one of which I stole and placed in the hive I think is queenless.

The temps dropped below 70 the next day, and has stayed in the 60's, 50's, and now the 40's ever since.  I don't see a 70 anywhere in our 10 day forecast.  We might see 67 on Saturday, but I'm not counting on it, and don't really want to bother the bees anymore than I have to.

So, we are just playing a wait and see game right now.  I don't have any idea what we'll find when we finally get to peek back into the hive.
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Offline Jen

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #7 on: December 28, 2017, 09:34:32 pm »
Wman, let's see now, I'm thinking about this....

"We also found a couple of frames of brood, one of which I stole and placed in the hive I think is queenless."

Um, but just a frame of brood is only going to add more bees to the queenless hive. Did the frame of brood have eggs too?
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Offline Wandering Man

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #8 on: December 28, 2017, 10:24:27 pm »
Yes. Eggs, larvae and pupae. The bees had a Walmart of product to choose from.

But, it sounds like it’s not going to do them any good.

I’ll be hoping for warm weather earlier rather than later so I can check on them.
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Offline Jen

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #9 on: December 28, 2017, 11:17:24 pm »
About when does swarming happen in your area?
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Offline Wandering Man

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2018, 01:52:21 pm »
About when does swarming happen in your area?
+

Jen,  I think we started seeing swarms in February last year.  I know it felt like there wasn't a week gone by that someone wasn't reporting a swarm.  This year has been colder, so maybe a little longer?
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Offline Wandering Man

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Re: Pretty Sure I have a Queenless Hive
« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2018, 02:05:55 pm »
It has been 23 days since I added one frame of brood with eggs.  Any eggs laid that day should have emerged today.

3Reds and I went out to look at the hive again.  The temp was in the upper 70's today.  The first thing I noticed was that they were a lot more aggressive than last time.  They were aggressive 23 days ago, but they didn't follow me across the yard and into a shed, like they did today.

The outer frames had quite a bit of uncapped nectar/sugar syrup and some capped honey.  The two middle frames had capped larvae and some pupae.  I still did not see the queen, but when I got past the two frames with brood, the bees took their aggression up a notch.  We were wearing jackets, rather than suits, and 3Reds had already taken five bee stings in her legs.  I got a couple of ant or spider bites on my right leg.  So, we chickened out and put the hive back together.  We added 1:1 sugar syrup to all of the hives, since I think we need to keep our populations up due to the yo-yo weather we have, and closed everything up. 

I'm pretty sure I started a robbing war.  This hive only has one box.  I shrunk the entrance to help them out.  One of the three already has a robbing screen, and the third hive has a small entrance.  Hopefully all will be okay until tonight.  I can add a robbing screen while everyone is asleep.

The temp is supposed to drop into the thirties, with the first 20* drop into the 50's expected in about 90 minutes.  So, I don't think the bees will have time to rob each other completely out.

Back to the so-called queenless hive: I saw no drones.  My guess now is that the hive really does have a queen, and I just missed her.


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