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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: English Family <englishfamily06 AT gmail.com>
  • To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [ocba] queen question/request
  • Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 14:17:23 -0400

Hi everyone,

I have a queen that has been completely baffling me the last few weeks.   About 5 weeks ago I checked the hive, all was well, eggs, brood, queen found, good pattern etc.  Strong, calm hive.  I went about 3 weeks before I could check again.  Only a few sparse eggs, no queen spotted (checked twice on two different days and she is marked), mostly drone brood, a few eggs on the side of cells, and only late stage worker brood.  Based on what I saw, I figured I had the beginnings of a laying worker hive.  That was last week.  Checked today with the intentions of making one last sweep and then combining or dumping the hive.  However, the bees were super calm, and low and behold the queen was spotted.  She is considerably smaller than she used to be, but it is the original queen.  A few empty queen cups, no queen cells.  Still no worker brood, mostly drone brood and open drone brood.  (also, varroa counts were <2 with alcohol test a week ago and I have not treated yet for varroa)

This is such a drastic turn around from what was going on a few weeks ago.  I am thinking I need to re-queen?  Which may be a challenge considering the time of year, finding a mated queen and all.  So I thought I would reach out and see if anyone has any suggestions, or possibly a queen they need a home for?  I do have another hive and could offer some eggs/brood but my thought is it will be too late for them to raise and mate a virgin queen to recover the population by winter.  Thoughts? 

Thanks
Melissa



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