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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Mark Smith <mpsmith90 AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Re-queen or let the hive die?
  • Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2016 22:24:06 -0500

Mark,

You'll need to find and remove the existing queen and every single queen cell before introducing a new queen. Otherwise the bees will simply kill the one you just bought.

Randall


On 11/7/2016 8:05 PM, Mark Smith wrote:
So after a further inspection tonight, I believe the hive to be queenright.  At least I think so since I did a further inspection and found a good amount of capped brood and young uncapped larva (maybe 5-6 days old).  My mistake was taken for granted from my last inspection that the top two supers were full of honey not to look in there for brood or queen cells.  I was wrong since the middle frames were converted from honey stores to brood frames.  Sadly, I did not find the queen so I am still not sure if she is in their but time was not on my side late this afternoon.  

However, I did find a large amount of queen cells.  Two were capped and others were about to be capped.  I ended up tearing down all the cells that I found.  I can only assume they were going to swarm at this point.  The bottom brood chamber was completely empty so I swapped it to the top of the four mediums in the hopes this will hasten the swarm.

I have a queen on its way from Georgia so maybe I can introduce her?


Mark






On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 11:44 AM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:

Mark,

The article <here> provides some insights into your dilemma. "Let the colony die" shouldn't be an option -- if you feel it is among the Walking Dead, combine it with the other one, don't let it die out on its own. The latter could result in the loss of all that honey and comb to wax moths and hive beetles.

However from your description you haven't convinced me that the suspect hive is queenless. It obviously was queenright within the past two weeks. No brood at this time of year does not necessarily mean the colony is queenless -- the queen may have just shut down for the season already. If the colony has lots of bees and resources, I would be tempted to just leave it alone... not to die but to live.

So... my advice depends on whether you think the colony is most likely to actually be queenright (odds are, it is) or not. If yes, leave it alone until spring. If no, combine it with the other colony and preserve its resources for reuse later.

Randall


On 11/7/2016 9:31 AM, Mark Smith wrote:
Good morning,

After an inspection yesterday, one hive seems to be queenless while the other is queen right (I saw here over brood).  I accidentally ripped apart at least two queen cells that were attached between two mediums in my queenless hive.  Right near the destroyed queen cells were a couple of cells that had larva.  I did a search of the hive and I did not find any other capped brood or eggs while my other hive (queen right hive) has eggs, capped brood and larva.

At this point, I am not sure about my options.  Both hives have significant honey/sugar-water for winters stores and plenty of bees.  I have 4 8-frame mediums on both hives but I am thinking of taking away the lowest medium since the frames are all empty.

I plan to contact a couple queen suppliers tooday and see if I can introduce one to the queenless hive.  I also plan to go back and do an even more detailed search today to see if I can find the queen.

Suggestions?  

Mark


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