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ocba - Re: [ocba] Missing queen

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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Chris and Lisa Laudeman <chrisandlisa AT laudeman.com>
  • To: kirsten.bothwell AT gmail.com
  • Cc: Walter Starks <walterstarks AT icloud.com>, OCBA <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>, thrhodes AT hotmail.com
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Missing queen
  • Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2016 10:13:38 -0500

Hi Kristen,

Regarding drone availability, I've seen many drones coming and going, and other beekeepers have been reporting the same observation. I don't have any sage advice for you other than things might still work out. Since you saw supercedure cells, my hope is that a viable queen emerged from one of those.

Laying workers usually don't start up that quickly (it sounds like 3-4 weeks based on your timeline?) especially if you now have a viable queen back in the hive. However, as Randall likes to point out, many of our bees haven't read the beekeeping books.

I would take a peak again looking for eggs/larvae/queen. Thinking of the previous advice on this thread, do you have another hive to combine with if you do have a laying worker develop? If you have enough workers to support the brood and no laying worker, a frame with eggs wouldn't hurt.

Take care,

Chris

On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 9:44 AM, <kirsten.bothwell AT gmail.com> wrote:
We have a similar situation with one of our hives. On Sun Feb 21 we opened the hive and found several supersedure cells and a scattering of capped brood.

The next Sunday, we went in and found no queen cells, no capped brood and lots of hot bees.

This past Sunday, we didn't see any signs of eggs or larvae although we only looked in the top deep.

Given the off/on weather and probable shortage of drones, I'm wondering how long we should wait before acting on this situation. I'm also wondering if it's too late to place a frame of brood and eggs from another hive. How long do we have before the dread laying workers show up?

Thanks in advance!

Kirsten




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