Her ladyship ain't laying ...

[Little_John]

Picked-up a swarm on 24th April - just over 3 weeks ago, and on an inspection this morning I see that she still hasn't started to lay - or at least I haven't been able to see a single egg yet. I watched for a good while and the girls seem to be more-or-less ignoring her: as she moved around the comb they simply moved out of her way. No fussing, no entourage. Nice looking queen, mind.

So, I've put a test frame in, and we'll see if that shows anything. Just wondered - as I'm fairly new to this swarm collection malarky (never had the need before) - how common is this reluctance to start laying again ?

Fortunately I don't really need these laying (or non-laying !) queens - my interest in swarms is only in their workforces for my uber-sized mating NUCs - but this has got my curiosity going ...

I picked up another good-sized identical-looking swarm yesterday (from the same area, too) - so it looks like somebody's let their guard down - and it'll be interesting to make a comparison.

A quid says there'll be another swarm tomorrow (Saturday), as sunny 22 degrees is forecast for around these parts.

LJ

[Jon]

You wont get a result from a test frame with a queen present whether she is laying or not.

[Little_John]

Well. I'd rather hoped that they would build supercedure cells if the queen was duff - isn't that what they would do 'in nature' - given that they had viable eggs present ?

[Jon]

I would think that is unlikely but with bees I suppose you can never say never.
Putting in a protected ripe queen cell might be a better option.
For some reason they can stay very attached to a duff non laying queen.
A lot of fancy dan queens are killed on introduction because the bees already have a non viable queen which they love and cherish!

[nellyp]

May be she's a VQ ? I have picked up 3 swarms this month and none are in lay yet, I suspect they are all VQ's, just a case of waitng for them to mate now before the window closes now that the warmer weather is with us.

[Little_John]

May be she's a VQ ? I have picked up 3 swarms this month and none are in lay yet, I suspect they are all VQ's, just a case of waitng for them to mate now before the window closes now that the warmer weather is with us.

So it's not uncommon this year ? Being so early (late April) I'd assumed she was mated and heading a prime swarm.

Oh well, she's got another 2 weeks to 'produce the goods', but after that ...

Thanks

[Jon]

Could be a virgin I suppose. There has been decent enough mating weather recently so maybe will be laying soon.
Someone maybe had a swarm with a clipped queen and then they went with the first virgin to emerge a week later.

[Bumble]

About swarming virgin queens. I was asked today if they ever mate while swarming, or during the whole swarming process which could mean them spending a few days hanging from a tree. I think the question was because they saw a number of drones walk into a hive with a freshly caught swarm.

I don't know the answer, but do you think it's likely to happen?

[Jon]

A virgin usually flies and mates from its new residence a few days after arrival.

[Bumble]

That's what I thought Jon.

Thanks

[Hoomin_erra]

On the topic of non laying queens........

I have a friend (Yes really) who's first and only hive seems to have gone a bit wrong. The queen is either a drone layer, or has completely stopped, and there are now workers laying. this is evidenced by the mass of drones in the hive, and the fact that the brood is very patchy, and seems to all be drone, and the eggs are on the sides on the cells.

Now for the solution, i have been looking online and come across 2 schools of thought...
1) Take the hive 100 foot away and shake out every single bee, then introduce a queen, or a frame of eggs.

2) Introduce 1 frame of brood and eggs a week until a queen cell is seen, and the pheromones from the brood will stop the worker layers.

In both instances, the existing queen is disposed of.

Anyone tried these? And do they work? I'm leaning to number 2, as the hive is very small, and shaking out the hive will severely reduce the hive strength.

[Jon]

You wont have laying workers and a drone laying queen in the same hive. It is one or the other.
With a drone laying queen, you squash her and replace with another queen. Relatively straightforward.
With laying workers you could try your option 2 but the most realistic option is to just write off the colony as it has old bees and drones in it which will never amount to much.
Easier to just start again.

[Hoomin_erra]

Queen is definitely present, but also have eggs on the sides of cells, and only drone brood, so i suppose she could be "faulty" and some of the workers have taken over laying

[Little_John]

... the most realistic option is to just write off the colony as it has old bees and drones in it which will never amount to much. Easier to just start again.

I think Jon's advice here is sound, and that there's a time to 'write-off' a colony as being just too demanding of resources.

With my own non-layer - whatever the utlimate source of the problem happens to be - I've now given that colony two frames of brood: the first was to initially 'anchor' the swarm, and the second was as a test frame. Which has shown nothing, as at yesterday. That's all the resources I'm prepared to invest in a situation which has something fundamentally 'wrong' with it.

So - although I've been waiting for new blood to arrive before raising any queens this year, I decided to start off my Morris Board system yesterday to knock out a couple of queens pro tempus, so that the problem queen can be culled and the workforce split-up into mating NUCs. Until then, at least her presence is keeping the colony active and collecting stores.

[Rosie]

I would not normally write of a colony like that. As part of my swarm prevention I always have the odd comb of sealed brood to find home for so I would put one in now and again just to keep it afloat until I can get hold of queen cell.

[Jon]

That's the thing though Steve, you end up putting in maybe 3 brood frames over a period of time to keep it going and you could take those three brood frames tomorrow and make up a brand new nuc from scratch. There is no real advantage to keeping those old bees going for a few weeks longer.
It is a matter of perception. If you just have 1 or 2 colonies it just seems like a terrible loss to lose one of them.

[mbc]

That's the thing though Steve, you end up putting in maybe 3 brood frames over a period of time to keep it going and you could take those three brood frames tomorrow and make up a brand new nuc from scratch. There is no real advantage to keeping those old bees going for a few weeks longer.
It is a matter of perception. If you just have 1 or 2 colonies it just seems like a terrible loss to lose one of them.

This x 1000000

Once a box of bees gets depressed its better to start out with a new lot, even if they're a lot smaller they'll soon overtake even a big old lot that have foundered due to queen issues.
Shake the bum bees in the grass and anything thats got any get up and go will join a queenright lot and add a little to their strength while the tired old duffers play out their part as toad food.

[Little_John]

So - her ladyship arrived here with a swarm on the 24th April, that's five and a half weeks ago, and today I've just found out what the problem has been ...

For the last few weeks she's being showing every sign of being a drone layer - drone cells scattered everywhere, and lots of domed-capped worker cells too.

I'd written her off and the only reason she's still alive was that I hadn't yet raised any replacements. However - she's been keeping morale up and the colony has packed away lots of stores, so her last few weeks on earth haven't been entirely wasted.

Today I needed to check another hive for thinning of swarm cells before cutting them out, so as I was already 'togged-up' I took a peek in her ladyship's hive just for the hell of it - only to find 2 supercedure cells there. One very long and already sealed, the other still having larva - around 3 or 4 days old I guess.

So - it looks like the problem has been that she's been running on empty for some time, but just managed to find a couple of sperm at the bottom of the tank.

Good old girl. :)

LJ

[gavin]

Alternatively (what a pessimist, eh?) the bees got fed up waiting for something to happen and decided to make a queen cell from *anything* they could find, ie a drone larva. Happens. Not saying it did happen this time, but keep that possibility open. Were the queen cells nice, well sculptured ones or a little uniform on the surface?

[Little_John]

Never thought of that. Guess I'd better put the champagne back in the fridge ...

The sealed cell was a good size, but come to think of it - it was of fairly uniform appearance. Never thought much about that at the time - I was just so surprised to see 'em. Yes - you could be right. Bummer.

Oh well, I'll be putting a cage around the the sealed cell tomorrow, so we'll see what emerges later on - a 'lady-boy' I suppose ...

LJ

[gavin]

If it doesn't emerge within 8 days you know things aint going well inside there. I have a feeling that lady-boys struggle to make it in a proper girl's room, but in any case they take a lot longer than the 8 days of a queen in a hurry to get out and be first to the throne. Usually 10 days for the boys in properly designed horizontal boy's rooms.

In previous and even more chaotic years I've sat wondering why queen cells were taking ages to emerge. Usually make notes now and predict the day(s).

[Adam]

My suspicion is that the bees have made queencells around drone larvae. (Esp if the q/c is long). Best squash the queen and put a frame of brood in with eggs/larvae and they'll make a proper queen - or unite with another with the duff queen under your foot.

FWIW, I did try making a laying worker colony into a good-un - perhaps 3 years ago. It took a frame of brood for 3 weeks at which time I think they started to produce a queencell. They killed the first introduced queen and accepted the second. It would have been better just to make up a nuc in the first place and shake the drone-layers to the 4 winds although it was worth the exercise (not that the first queen would agree).

[Little_John]

I opened the hive yesterday in order to take a photograph of this king's-sized queen cell, only to find that the girls had torn it down. Seems they know exactly what they want, but are snookered from getting there.

So as today was warm and sunny, I took the opportunity to shake all the bees out onto a sheet, with one Q/X over the entrance, and another over the top of the box, in order to find Her Ladyship. No problems. She's now in the freezer.

Let's hope her replacement has better luck getting mated ... :)

LJ

[Bridget]

I have another dilemma - poorly laying queen,I mean really poor with a few drone eggs in worker cells and very little happening all round. Last week I found this queen, and she was not at all what I was looking for. I had re-queened this hive in August and was expecting to find a red marked queen, instead I found a nice looking queen with no markings at all. i straight away thought that there must have been an autumn supercedure and she didn't get mated properly. Plans were a foot to replace her with one of Drumgerrys new queens so I thought I had better mark her so we could find her when the time came. First shot at marking and made a bit of a bodge of it - not very tidy. So thought we'd leave her in peace. Bee examiner came on Wednesday as I was taking my basic bee master exam. She was quite sure that it was a failing hive and I should find a swarm quickly and combine them. Spoke to experienced beekeeper on Friday and she was much more optimistic saying it could be a virgin queen from a supercedure this spring - oops and we'd just marked her. Spirits rose a little and then was given a swarm from a beekeeper who is getting on a bit and finding things more tricky. I was delighted, brought them home put them in their new hive - all went well (first time dealing with a swarm). Then was looking around for the inspection board as I thought I had better check for any varroa drop on this new colony. Pulled out the inspection board from an empty hive and sitting on it was the queen we had just marked up the week before. Now remember all my bees are in a bee house and the closed up empty hive with the inspection board was couple of yards away from her hive. I know she went back into the hive after the marking, and anyway she would not survive 6 days out of the hive. So had she taken a mating flight the day before and got lost maybe entering the bee house by a window and if so why had she not gone on to the inspection board beneath her own hive. The evening before her colony were still out at 8pm flying about (they are usually in bed much earlier) - were they looking for her? would she survive the night? Had she maybe gone out on a mating flight while we were re-hiving the swarm yesterday and got lost with all the extra goings on. She was pretty rocky when I found her so I just popped her back in the hive. There was a small kerfuffle round her and then she was lost from view.
So should I leave it all alone for the moment and let her get back on her feet and if she's OK she might begin laying. Or should I try and find her to establish whether she is still alive. Or she may not have got mated when she was out and I've had to close up her hive to one-two bee spaces to stop robbing by the new swarm so she might not be able to get out again easily. If they did kill her on re entry they don't have any eggs to make a queen out of.
Any ideas welcome
Bridget

[Jon]

Assuming this is a virgin queen and she got lost coming back to the bee house, she was not necessarily on a mating flight. They take several orientation flights before they take a mating flight, and they can take more than one mating flight as well depending upon how many drones they mate with.
If you wait a week and check for eggs might be the best course.
You could put in a frame of eggs/larvae from elsewhere as a test frame would do no harm.
If they draw out queen cells it will tell you this queen did not survive her ordeal.
Marking a virgin should not affect her mating unless you plastered the wings.
I don't mark mine but I know a couple of people who mark them when they emerge in the incubator before introduction to Apideas.