Mailing list for the Person County Beekeepers Association, Roxboro, NC

[Randall Austin <s.randall.austin AT gmail.com>]

Bob,

Do #2 first. If the bees draw out queen cells, the hive doesn't have a queen. You can then decide, if you want, to cut those cells out and introduce a store-bought queen. Or let them raise one themselves. Or combine this hive with the other one for now.

If the bees don't draw out queen cells, chances are that the bees have replaced the queen and you have a virgin or freshly mated queen that hasn't had time to show evidence of herself yet. If that's the case, there should be evidence (eggs/brood) in another week or two. Virgins & not-yet-laying new queens are usually smaller than "old housewife" queens and are often skittish/ runny, all of which makes them hard to spot.

Randall Austin


On 4/29/2015 4:56 PM, Robert Brauer wrote:

Hi all ... I installed two packages on 3/29.  At this point, one seems to be doing great and the other is missing its queen.  I checked the hive on 4/24 and again today (4/29) and can see no evidence of a queen, eggs or open brood.  

Should I ...

1) Bite the bullet and buy a queen for this hive to try and salvage it? 

2) Swap a frame with eggs from my healthy hive in hope that they will make a new queen?  I'm worried that the clock is ticking on the original bees and there might not be enough time for this approach.  

Thanks for any advise you can provide.

    Bob 

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