Worldwide Beekeeping

Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: rober on May 17, 2015, 08:55:19 am

Title: how to proceed?
Post by: rober on May 17, 2015, 08:55:19 am

I have a pretty strong hive that is wall to wall honey & queenless. there is a sealed queen cell. I'm thinking of pulling some frames of honey & replacing them with frames of drawn comb & foundation. my thinking is that the foundation will be drawn out by the time the new queen is ready to start laying & she'll have room to lay. sound feasible? I'm also adding a super so they'll have someplace to put up their honey.
 I also have 2 queenless swarms that I'm introducing queens to this week. if the queen cell in the hive mentioned above doesn't work out I can combine the smaller swarm with this one to get it queen-right.

Title: Re: how to proceed?
Post by: tbonekel on May 17, 2015, 09:26:05 am

Sounds like a good plan. Is this a double deep that is wall to wall honey? If so, they have been queenless a while, right. I'm surprised you didn't get a laying worker in the meantime.

Title: Re: how to proceed?
Post by: brooksbeefarm on May 17, 2015, 09:59:12 am

If the queen cell is a good one?she will need new brood to work with, all of the bees you see now will be dead when the new queen starts laying. I would put two or three frames of capped brood in the hive now and hope the new queen makes it back from her maiden flight. ;) Jack

Title: Re: how to proceed?
Post by: rober on May 17, 2015, 11:25:54 am

it's a double deep ( 10 frames ) & it had brood a week ago. I guess as an alternative I could destroy that queen cell or give that frame to the smaller swarm & give this hive one of the new queens.

Title: Re: how to proceed?
Post by: iddee on May 17, 2015, 11:34:55 am

I like your first plan. If the cell is viable you still have capped brood that is going to be emerging. If you don't have capped brood, the q-cell is no good. Go ahead and combine the small swarm with the double deep and give it the new queen.

Title: Re: how to proceed?
Post by: rober on May 18, 2015, 09:27:24 am

I went into that hive yesterday pulled some honey laden frames & replaced them with frames of empty drawn comb & foundation. while in the hive I saw an unmarked queen! since the missing queen was marked this has to be the from the queen cell I found last week. so the plan now is to add a queen to that queenless swarm & if the queen I found in this hive doesn't work out i'll combine the swarm with it. between swarms, nucs, & splits I'm back up to 16 hives. I have 3 removals on the books so my yard is growing fast.
time to to start building some more woodenware.

Title: Re: how to proceed?
Post by: brooksbeefarm on May 18, 2015, 07:31:21 pm

You have caught the bee disease. :laugh:Once you get it there is no cure for it. RIP. :sad: Jack

Title: Re: how to proceed?
Post by: LazyBkpr on May 18, 2015, 08:03:44 pm

LOL   Welcome to OUR world rober!