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Author Topic: Queenless hive over winter  (Read 2895 times)

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Offline badgerbeekernube66

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Queenless hive over winter
« on: March 05, 2016, 07:46:19 am »
Hey everyone, I've got a friend that had a hive swarm last season and continued to send cast swarms leaving the hive queenless going into winter.
We are still rookies, however I have pretty good eyesight and I saw no queen or signs of her the last time we inspected which was late August early September. This person decided to let the hive go and start over this spring. I haven't been over there to look myself yet but he is telling me the bees are fine and have requested themselves.
A laying worker can't produce Queens can they?
His population was way down in the fall, and now it seems to have rebounded. I am confused as to how this happened. Thanks to all.
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Offline iddee

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Re: Queenless hive over winter
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2016, 08:11:35 am »
It could be, but rarely is, Thelytoky.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/thelytoky.html

More likely it was an oversight of the beekeeper.
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Offline apisbees

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Re: Queenless hive over winter
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2016, 08:12:50 am »
Quote
last time we inspected which was late August early September

If another inspection wad done in mid Sept You would have found a laying queen. New queens will start by laying intently large quantity of eggs. 6 frames of brood would give the hive 12 frames of bees for winter.
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I have pretty good eyesight and I saw no queen or signs of her
a virgin can be not much bigger than a worker. She will look more like a worker bee than the big fat queen she will become when mated. Virgins are skittish and will run in the hive when it is opened and unlike mated queens that you find on the comb that they use to lay eggs in, virgins are not yet dependent and can be in/on any part of the hive or even out of the hive on orientation or mating flights.
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Offline rwlaw

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Re: Queenless hive over winter
« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2016, 09:24:47 am »
If your unsure of the inspection date and the time of the last virgin left in the hive to mate, all bets are off of what happened in that hive.
She might've took off like a rocket after your last inspection (like apis says, a young or freshly mated queen can be a world class sprinter and it's real easy to miss a patch of eggs). With the early winter weather we had and right amount of stores, she could've been laying into mid October or later. Better check on their cupboards, if they're light because that happened, they could easily starve in March.

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