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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Daniel Kenan <dan.kenan AT gmail.com>, ocba <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] No queen, no brood, ? swarm cells?
  • Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 12:24:17 -0400

Hey Dan,

Sounds like things are going fine. Our job at this point is to not mess things up... too badly.

1. Would it be best at this point to give the hive a chance to requeen itself or order a new queen?
    This is your choice, but since we aren't building up to a honey flow anytime soon, a leisurely natural requeening makes sense to me. Swarm queens are raised under the best conditions a hive has to offer so should be high quality.

2. Given that the swarm cell pupae appear almost mature, what should be the time frame before my next check for evidence of a new queen and/or eggs? I feel like I should minimize additional disturbances, but I want to know as soon as possible if I need to buy a queen.
    A hive will swarm any time after the first queen cell is capped. A queen is in pupal stage for about 7 days. The new queen then needs to mature and strengthen enough to fly (a few days); go on several mating flights, weather permitting (several days/a week); internally process the sperm and begin laying (a few days); have time for the first eggs to hatch and grow big enough to easily see (5 or 6 days). Add a week to that to allow for things not going exactly as the textbooks suggest. So don't expect to see new brood for something like 5 weeks. This is where patience comes in. It is very easy to jump the gun and "do something" right before everything would have turned out fine if left alone (yes, I'm guilty!). Attempting to add a new queen when a hive is in the process of making their own can be frustrating and futile, as described <here>.

3. How late in the season can we purchase and successfully requeen if we need to?
    Lots of vendors at the NCSBA Summer Meeting had plenty of queens to sell two weeks ago. Bailey's Bee Supply has them in the store ready to go. It is probably easy to find queens, somewhere, all through August. You can requeen at any time, if queens are available. However if your hive has been queenless for a period of time and the population is down, the question becomes: does it have time to build the population back up to overwintering strength before November?

4. Why would a seemingly successful first year hive swarm? Both lower and upper hive bodies have at least 3 empty frames with no comb built out. I was reluctant to add a super due to the extra space for small hive beetles to hang out. There were a lot more hive beetles at yesterday's inspection, after the apparent swarm.
    Swarming is how Apis mellifera reproduces itself. Successful hives are the ones that will swarm. Our challenge is to try to keep them from doing what they are naturally inclined to do. Despite what everybody says, "space" is not the simple answer, certainly not space in supers. Read up on queen and brood pheromones in The Hive and the Honey Bee for some clues (but not firm answers) on some of the triggers for swarming.

You are lucky that they swarmed after the honey flow ended. I don't give summer swarms a second thought. I don't lose my surplus honey and the stay-at-home bees should have time to rebuild before the fall flow since they already have comb. The flew-off swarm is probably doomed since they swarmed in a dearth and will have to build comb and put up stores quickly.

Randall

On 7/20/2015 11:08 AM, Daniel Kenan wrote:
This is our first season keeping bees. I've been checking them every 2-3 weeks, and marveling at what a great queen we had, always lots of eggs and brood in a tight pattern. Also lots of burr comb in middle frames between top and bottom large hive bodies that I dutifully cleaned out at every inspection. In the evenings of early July, the bees would form a massive beard on the front of the hive. A few days ago the beard looked significantly smaller. I inspected the hive yesterday for the first time in 3 weeks and was shocked to find no eggs or larvae and only a few capped brood cells...mostly drones. There was plenty of nectar, honey and pollen. The place where the "burr comb" had been built in the center of the hive, between top and bottom hive body, now looked suspiciously like swarm cells. Some of the cells had been disrupted and had nearly mature pupae. Other cells looked intact. The remaining bees are behaving normally, and there is no evidence of laying workers.

Based on these observations, I assume that our original queen swarmed and the swarm cells will provide a replacement queen. What I am a bit surprised about is that virtually all of the brood cells are empty. I would think that the queen would normally continue laying eggs until the day she swarms.

My questions are:

1. Would it be best at this point to give the hive a chance to requeen itself or order a new queen?

2. Given that the swarm cell pupae appear almost mature, what should be the time frame before my next check for evidence of a new queen and/or eggs? I feel like I should minimize additional disturbances, but I want to know as soon as possible if I need to buy a queen.

3. How late in the season can we purchase and successfully requeen if we need to?

4. Why would a seemingly successful first year hive swarm? Both lower and upper hive bodies have at least 3 empty frames with no comb built out. I was reluctant to add a super due to the extra space for small hive beetles to hang out. There were a lot more hive beetles at yesterday's inspection, after the apparent swarm.

Thanks for input!

Dan


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