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  • From: English Family <englishfamily06 AT gmail.com>
  • To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [ocba] Swarm/virgin queen question
  • Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2015 11:52:54 -0400

Hi folks

We caught a swarm on April 20th.  It was a small and what we assume was a secondary swarm, but not certain.  We saw the queen during transport and were concerned that she may have gotten injured.  After they settled in, I checked the colony a few days later and did not see a queen, however, it was possible she was on a mating flight (the queen we saw during transport looked like a virgin queen).  Now, 10 days later, there is no sign of eggs or brood and still have not seen a queen  We are concerned that the queen we saw was in fact injured and did not survive.  However, this is my first time dealing with catching a swarm and dealing with a virgin queen (I have recently taken over managing our hives and am having to re-learn some of the information!).

How long should we wait to see eggs before we consider re-queening?  I have read information about the time from queen hatching to laying eggs, but not sure how this translates to timing with a virgin queen in a swarm.  Assuming the queen was in fact a virgin?   

We have not had luck this year with our bees as our older colony became a laying worker hive and all efforts to save it have not worked.  Our luck seems to be running short and we do not want another queen-less colony, so I admit we are quite impatient about the swarm colony and might just be jumping the gun!  We are really hoping to keep this swarm colony afloat, but don't want to jump to re-queening if not necessary! 

Thanks
Melissa


  • [ocba] Swarm/virgin queen question, English Family, 04/30/2015

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