I'm fretting

[Les]

I received my bees on 3/26 .....yesterday was a beautiful high 60's day and decided to take a peek inside the hive.  I was glad to see comb being built, pollen being stored and probably my sugar syrup being stored.  However, I did not see a single egg in either hive!  I took a look again today and cannot find the queen in hive #1 (which does not surprise this newbie).  Found the queen in hive #2 and marked her.  But still no eggs at all.  I hope I don't have dud queens!

[Ray]

Wait a week, it's still early.

[riverbee]

les,
eggs are very difficult to spot, not saying you couldn't see them, they are very tiny. 
queens are hard to spot sometimes as well.
have the bees given the queens some drawn foundation for the queens to be laying in?
what is the temperament of both hives?
do you see or have any queen cups that have been started? sometimes the queens in packages can or will be superseded. not saying this is the case for you.

like ray said, maybe give the queens another week with your temps the way they have been? never hived packages this early in the spring, but usually have queens laying within ten days.

[Les]

Riverbee, I had to pull out some comb, there was double comb present probably due to bad frame spacing on my part.  I went over that comb with a fine tooth comb even stuck in toothpick and dug around......no eggs.

They have drawn out plenty of foundation, so I know that is not the issue.  I did spot what I think is a queen "cell" on the side of one of the foundations. Wish I wasn't alone when I was doing this, my sweetie could have gotten a picture.

When the sun is shining and it's warm, they are happy bees. When it's overcast and cooler (like late today) and I went to change their syrup, they are not happy but even I'm miserable when the days are like this.

I am going to leave them alone until Saturday when it is forecasted for sunshine and in the 60's and then take another peek.  I hope the one queen that I marked will starting laying eggs and once I have brood, I can move a frame over to the other hive (if we determine it is queenless). and they can make a queen.
Till then I will fret LOL!

[riverbee]

les,
okay, don't fret............

no eggs, foundation drawn for the queens to lay but are not laying. queen cell or queen cup?
also bees can get cranky when it's overcast, cooler, raining, snowing, etc.........this is common.

personally if it were me, and neither queen is laying by saturday, i would be considering re-queening both hives.  you hived them on march 26th, it is now
april 7th, so 12 days have passed, could be the queens need  a little more time, but i would expect to see the queens laying within 10 days of hiving the packages. by this saturday will be 16 days.  if one is still absent and the other is not laying, if it were me, my HO, i would consider requeening. 

you are feeding syrup, are you feeding a pollen sub?  are the bees in either hive bringing pollen in?
sometimes, queens of certain breeds will not lay (carniolians and more so russians) until nectar(or syrup) and pollen are both present. 

this may not be the case, just suggestions, i have not hived packages much before the first of may in my climate, maybe late mid to late april.  if i experienced queens not present and not laying within two weeks, other options/actions; requeening, eggs/larvae from another hive, or combining with another.  typically i requeened, didn't want to wait for the time for the bees to requeen themselves.

[iddee]

I would call the people I bought them from and explain just what you did here. Then I would call them again Saturday or Monday and tell them what I found. I would expect them to send replacement queens for any without eggs at that time.

[Dunkel]

I agree with waiting a little longer.  Good job on getting two hives so you can monitor their progress.  Without the quick one you would not be aware of any possible problems.  Hopefully she will get started laying soon. 

[riverbee]

how much longer?

i think iddee has a great suggestion on this.

[Dunkel]

I'd wait a week. But if she calls Monday she would probably get one shipped out soon enough to keep from getting stuck in the postal system over the following weekend.  So Sunday/Monday sounds  like a plan. But I would stay out of there until Sunday.

[sc-bee]

Is this you first hives? And marking queens... a lot more nerve than I had. Of course not to hard if you had a queen catcher. I still fumble with my obese hands   Eggs are hard to see..... I would try to avoid the toothpick thing IMHO. Get you an led light and shine to the bottom. Also have sweetie come along and take some digital pictures to enlarge and search the cells by enlarging the pics. Two bad queens from two packages.... of course possible but...

[Slowmodem]

Is this you first hives? And marking queens... a lot more nerve than I had. Of course not to hard if you had a queen catcher. I still fumble with my obese hands   Eggs are hard to see..... I would try to avoid the toothpick thing IMHO. Get you an led light and shine to the bottom. Also have sweetie come along and take some digital pictures to enlarge and search the cell. Two bad queen.... of course possible but...

I keep a magnifying glass in my toolbox.

[Jen]

Me too Slow, really helps

[Les]

I am definitely waiting till it warms up a bit before I go back into the hives...... the weatherman has changed the forecast to Sunday and 70!  I have already been searching for queen suppliers.  Sure would like to get northern queens but the northern queen suppliers don't have them ready yet.  So if I do decide to requeen, it will have to come from a supplier farther south.  I am trying to be optimistic and send out positive karma to the hives LOL
 

[Jen]

Can't shake a stick at good ol' karma Les! I would have requeened my hot hive by now, but I can't get any queens until the end of May, so I'm trying the 'divide and conquer' method.

[Riverrat]

Just a thought.  The bees are taking a lot of syrup and building comb.  Make sure they are not filling the new cells with syrup leaving no open cells for queen to lay and remember never take the top off a hive on a day you wouldn't want your roof taken off

[CpnObvious]

remember never take the top off a hive on a day you wouldn't want your roof taken off

I'm pretty certain I won't ever want my roof taken off!   

[Les]

Only lifting the cover to place the sugar syrup feeder over the hole in the inner cover and I do it as quickly as the bees allow (move out of the way).It continues to be cold and damp here, it is depressing.  I have to confess I would rather see snow than this drab in between period but Mother Nature makes all the decisions and we have to live with it.