Disappearing queen

[crabbitdave]

Split my two year old queen 4 weeks ago all went well, when I checked ten days ago they had four frames of brood and 3 supers all was well, checked today supers being sealed first two frames of brood sealed brood fine then on the third two emergency cells and two open, no queen no eggs just the last of the unsealed larva, if I've not been there for ten days she been laying after I was there where is she ?


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[Jon]

swarm?

Having said that I have had a couple of queens just disappear this year leaving only open emergency cells.

[crabbitdave]

There's to many bees as that's the first thing I though but they had lots of space, then I thought I had squashed her, just all a bit strange


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[Jon]

I had two go missing. The first one could have been my fault as I had the hive open a week before and could possibly have damaged her of had her fly off a comb.
The second one just went awol and I found several emergency queen cells just started.

[Bumble]

Jon, have you had the same happen with swarms? I have two collected swarms that were doing very well, both queens seen. This weekend there were no new eggs, and no sign of either queen. Both have stores, so not starving. There were no queen cells in either colony.

[Jon]

Roger Patterson is the man who has been banging the drum about queens just disappearing for several years now.
It seems to happen to me the odd time but is not as big a problem for me as it appears to be for some people.

[crabbitdave]

I always thought a young queen might b a bit flytie but not when she was 2, but every year you learn a little more


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[Bumble]

I know Roger has been going on about it for a while, I don't know anybody round here who has had the same problem.

[crabbitdave]

My wife thinks she's been nicked from the hive, but I thought it would have easier to steal the hive and supers


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[lindsay s]

I’ve had disappearing queens before and the last time was just last week. I was checking a colony a week last Sunday that I was planning to make a nuc with. The queen was well marked and had been united to the colony about a month before. I had seen her a few times since the introduction and she was laying well. I examined all the frames and there was plenty of open brood, eggs and a few queen cells with eggs but I couldn’t find the queen. So I replaced the crown board and examined the rest of my hives before returning to it for a second time and I even checked the super but I still couldn’t find the queen. The bees were in a good mood but I had my suspicions that this colony was queenless. Four days later restless bees and emergency queen cells. The colony hasn’t swarmed and I didn’t squash the queen or smoke her out of the hive. I’m pretty annoyed about losing this queen but my other half thinks my paranoia about queen rustlers is taking things too far.

[Jon]

They do just go missing sometimes. I usually blame myself for doing her some damage on a previous inspection if the timing fits with that but I have had several just disappear when it could not have been beekeeper error. I would say theft is pretty unlikely. Would be just as quick to steal the entire hive. Some beekeepers I know would take about 2 hours to steal a queen.

[Castor]

I had a well marked queen disappear -

Queen Rustling seemed highly likely in my view....I could picture the scene, hunting for a queen in the dark...

Or maybe it's a simple weekend flyaway. Maybe she's off with a special drone somewhere before she disembowels him?

Then she reappeared in another hive twenty feet away.

Personally I think that's down to my other half shuffling frames about, but she's not having that.

[Kate Atchley]

This year, for the first time, we've had disappearing queens in Arnamurchan/Moidart.

Two were young queens which appeared to come through the winter okay and then disappeared in early April. Then one in late April from a small colony where the queen seemed to be laying well. It was too early for swarming in these parts. The latest is the most odd: a strong queen in a colony on double brood which went queenless with only a couple of scrub "panic" cells which didn't look fit for purpose. They hadn't swarmed (far too many bees) so did the queen go off lay before disappearing so the bees were left without good eggs/larvae to use to replace her? The timing did not fit with inspections unless, that is, she was damaged but not killed when last I saw her and lingered on for a while.

So that's 4 queens disappearing this year ... 2 from my 10 colonies ... but none in earlier years. The colonies concerned have no known varroa (yet!).

[Jon]

Two of my own went missing and also one at the association apiary in a Ben Harden box set up.
The old queen was found and placed in the bottom box with drone comb and lots of drawn comb.
The brood frames went in the top brood chamber above a queen excluder.
The colony started cells from grafts offered in the top box.
A couple of weeks later when we went to rearrange the box there was no queen and only a bit of emerging drone brood in the bottom box.
I don't think she had laid any brood at all.
I requeened it on Saturday and we found the marked and clipped queen 6 feet in front of the box in a small cluster of bees on Monday evening.
I removed the queen cells from the top box and put the new queen into it between 2 excluders.
Lets see her get out of that one!
Hard to work out what is going on.

[lindsay s]

Three of us up here have lost queens this year and in two of the cases it definitely wasn’t the beekeepers error. Maybe disappearing queens are more common than we think but most of us will put it down to human error.

[Adam]

"We found the marked and clipped queen 6 feet in front of the box in a small cluster of bees on Monday evening".
Could you have missed her on the Saturday - i.e. she was already on the grass? They are easy to miss and I have nearly trod on small clusters like you had. I tend to look where I'm going nowadays if I suspect bees misbehaving!

[Jon]

This was the one I had just introduced on Saturday which I had removed from an apidea. She was marked green.
The one which went awol was 2 years old.

[Bridget]

I got a Nuc of bees 12 days ago with a young queen ( this season). Queen not marked which was a bummer. Went in on Saturday for first inspection, giving them time to settle, and found 3 sealed queen cells. Thorough inspection on Sunday, two of us went through the brood box three times - no queen and no eggs though plenty sealed brood and larvae. This was a stonking Nuc with far more bees than usual on five frames. What to do? Executive decision? Decided the queen has scarpered and left two of the queen cells to fight it out. Fingers crossed.


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[Kate Atchley]

Sounds wise ... supersedure or swarm cells usually well fed so you may get a great queen. You could even have made a split? Maybe not too late to do that if sufficient bees?

[Bridget]

Sounds wise ... supersedure or swarm cells usually well fed so you may get a great queen. You could even have made a split? Maybe not too late to do that if sufficient bees?

I'm not sure I'm confident enough to do that Kate. I've not been beekeeping long enough to tell whether there are sufficient bees. I think there are about 6-7 frames and no supers yet, still giving them s/s. And there are no eggs and both QC on the same frame so how would that work. Oops I'm confused now


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[Kate Atchley]

You mentioned originally that there were "far more bees than usual" in the nuc and if they have not swarmed (which perhaps they did) you could split into two, sharing brood and stores evenly, and the bees. Unless both cells are behind one another on the frame, on the wires or otherwise difficult to cut out, you could cut out one of them leaving some spare comb around it (ideally using a small, very sharp craft knife), and create a space of same size and shape on another drawn frame, so you can put one cell in each part of the split.

That may be taking it too far for you and it is fine as it is. Good luck with it!

[Mellifera Crofter]

... and fill in empty space in the new nucs with dummies. Kitta