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ocba - Re: [ocba] Need queen cell or possibly swarm

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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: English Family <englishfamily06 AT gmail.com>, ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Need queen cell or possibly swarm
  • Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:45:46 -0400

Assuming you are talking about an established colony, it's quite possible your hive is in the "twilight zone" between the colony swarming with the old queen and there being evidence of the new queen. This is much more likely than a hive suddenly becoming genuinely queenless, especially this time of year. An article <here> talks about this very common situation.

Wait 2 weeks and see what happens. Or if you have another colony, steal a frame with eggs, put it in the questionable colony, wait a few days to a week and see if they've drawn out queen cells. If so, then it was queenless, but they are fixing it. If not, there is a virgin running around and you'll see evidence of her some time later; give it more time.

Randall

On 4/15/2015 1:22 PM, English Family wrote:
CAHzLUuYWe8ga1rcd71yc652BDEghHF_sHBn-Vwwqssx-LeXEkQ AT mail.gmail.com" type="cite">
Hi folks

Our colony is officially queen-less.  There is no evidence of a living queen and no queen cells.  We attempted to re-queen a few days ago with a purchased queen in a cage from the local bee supply place.  Apparently we ended up with a bad queen because although she was doing well when we put her cage in the hive, on day 3 when we went to check on her progress on getting out of the cage, she was dead with no visible injuries. 

We were baffled as the colony itself had seemed to be reacting as if they were accepting her (much calmer and more "orderly" than they had been prior to introducing).  So now we are queen-less and not really wanting to purchase another caged queen, as we have had little success in the past with this method.  We would like to try and introduce a queen cell.  If anyone has a queen cell available, please let me know. 

If we cannot procure a queen soon, we will have to let this colony die out.  So we would be happy to take a swarm or nuc if anyone has something like that available. 

Thanks!
Melissa English


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