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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: mark powers <markapowers53 AT gmail.com>
  • To: English Family <englishfamily06 AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] queen question/request
  • Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2016 18:09:52 -0400

This provider still has queens. I got one from him in March.

mnapiary AT windstream.net

Sent from my iPad

> On Sep 23, 2016, at 2:17 PM, English Family <englishfamily06 AT gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> 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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