New Queen (I think) but no drones

[Rowie]

One of my hives decided to supercede last month and the new queen should have hatched two weeks ago. Found the old queen on the ground at the front of the hive the same day. Just had a first look in today but couldn't find new queen or any eggs. My worry is that there have been no drones since the bad weather in August and I'm afraid she's been unable to find a mate! Any advice would be welcome.

[Mellifera Crofter]

One of you hives - so can you give this hive a test frame of eggs? I don't know whether there comes a time in the year when a test frame is not that good as an indication of the presence of a queen any more - that they might decide it's too late to make a queen. I don't know. I'm in a similar position. I'll have a look around Tuesday to see what they've done.
Kitta

[Rowie]

Thanks for reply. I do have other hives but queens seem to have stopped laying. I think I need to try again to find this queen if she's there! If not I can unite with another colony but if there's a young virgin queen in there I'm afraid she'll kill the mated queen in the other colony. I'm also going to wait a while before having another look.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Most of my queens have stopped laying. I had to go through several hives before I found a frame with eggs to use as a test frame.

When you're next in the apiary, perhaps first see if you can find a test frame before disturbing that colony too much searching for the queen. Some of your queens might have started laying again.
Kitta

[Feckless Drone]

been there - what worked for me was simply waiting. Others on the forum have mentioned that strong colonies sometimes take an age to get a new Q laying and 4 weeks from emergence is almost always the time scale for mine. You mention you have other hives so I guess wait a couple of weeks then unite is possible.
But, the issue is if you have a Q there in the first place and would you want to risk letting the Qs sort it out. I'd be interested to hear how it goes.

[Jon]

I have had several supersedures over the past few weeks and thankfully the queens have mated within a couple of weeks of emergence. We have had great weather.
I rarely see perfect supersedure where the old queen is retained until the new one has started to lay.
They old queen often disappears before the new one has even emerged. Risky behaviour but as MBC claims, the bees know best!

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Rowie
You can combine them with a queen excluder between boxes and newspaper pinned to it
Dont be surprised to find laying in both top and bottom boxes later on though
That then gives you another problem to solve :)

[Rowie]

Thanks all for the advice. I'm going to have another look today but will check other hives for eggs first as suggested. I know the old queen is gone - found her body on the ground the day after the new queen was due to emerge. Will let you know how it goes.

[Jon]

I saw another supersedure today. This colony has a single sealed cell at the weekend.
The old marked queen was on the back frame and the virgin was in the middle of the brood nest.
The new queen is far bigger than her ma.
The old queen is still laying well and at least they have retained her for the moment.
This was one of the colonies which had MAQS

[busybeephilip]

queen losses and supercedure seems to be an inherent unwanted problem with MAQS which is why I avoid this method of treatment. Stick with the thynol and oxalic methods which have been well proven in europe for many years

[Mellifera Crofter]

Rowie, I've now twice introduced test frames in my colony, but they did not draw out queen cells although I'm almost 100% sure they're queenless - so I asked for advice and was told it's too late for test frames to be accurate; that they might not draw out queen cells even though they're queenless. So bear that in mind with your test frame. I'm now going to unite my colony with another using a queen excluder as DR suggested (and keep my fingers crossed).
Kitta

[HJBee]

queen losses and supercedure seems to be an inherent unwanted problem with MAQS

I had a different experience, I treated a hive in Late Spring with MAQS, the only hive not to try to swarm or supersede out of the lot! Maybe the time if year is a contributory factor?

[busybeephilip]

HJBee, Could be a whole number of reasons - the queen fertility perhaps damaged by MAQS so the hive did not build to full strength for mid may, the queen was superceded without you knowing again affecting hive strength. The queen was a young queen so not as likely to swarm, could be an influence of non swarmy genetics from the queens mating. Or as you suggest and probably most likely as you are an experienced beekeeper, time of year late spring when it is cooler than it is now so the acid might not be so damaging to the queen due to slower evaporation. Its a hard one to call but there is enough problems being experienced / reported out there to suggest that we don't know the whole story behind the use of MAQS, some success and some failures. As long as everyone is aware of the risk then its their choice to use it.

[HJBee]

Definitely retained the same queen who was clipped & marked and from the previous season. Like you say all treatments seem to have their drawbacks, shame we need to use them and in my case use more than we used to. (And I've only been at it 3 years).

[nemphlar]

Mel I had kept an old queen, her 3rd year she had done well and I didn't have the heart to squish her so put her in a nuc and she was building it up quite well. Last Saturday I found her with no brood and no eggs and decided to join them with a young queen in a similar sized nuc with a queen excluder. What I thought were queen less bees then proceeded to drag the young queen out the front door. When I checked again there was a virgin in the top nuc which her own bees obviously preferred. I don't have a drone anywhere so the VG is gone and I now have a young queen laying but with limp. Never had that before

[Jon]

Re MAQS, if you have spare queens and are prepared to lose the resident queen it is certainly an effective varroa treatment.
I tried it for the first time this year and same as Philip I would stick with Apiguard plus winter Oxalic as the treatment of choice.

[busybeephilip]

Here Here Jon re MAQS,

Was poking at the bees this evening and can still smell the thymol in the apairy from the pads most now covered with propolis. Was weighing hives too - they are gaining a good bit of weight from the ivy, this evening all fanning vigoursly and had to transfer a nuc to BB (a PD graft queen open mated :-) ) Hmmm...... still increasing numbers against my better judgment - got bees bad -just can't help it.

[Feckless Drone]

I'm surprised to see so many of you are still doing inspections - weather must be alot kinder elsewhere. I have got small entrances on, and pretty much resigned myself to completing feeding then closing up until the apivar strips need to be removed. Bees were a bit tetchy, I don't want to risk being too intrusive at this point and with feeding started, lifting frames always results in some release of stores, there's always a wasp or two having a look and I worry about inducing robbing. It feels a bit unsatisfactory because although I am happy all colonies had laying Q's a late supercedure that runs into problems and would be dealt with, could be missed. How late on are people planning to keep up inspections? And is it just to check that colonies are Q-right?

[HJBee]

Did an inspection on a new small colony today before deciding to apply the 2nd lot of 2 week of Apiguard, this particular queen is not off the lay with it. Will check them again and feed it 2 weeks. I'm needing to move mine for a short while from their site so will be checking them obviously during that which will be Oct - Nov. Rest I dont plan to be in and about past mid Oct. HJ

[Jon]

I'm surprised to see so many of you are still doing inspections - weather must be a lot kinder elsewhere.

Sure is feckless. We have had no rain for 3 weeks and have had several days with the temperature over 20c.
Balmy Belfast!
I have 15 virgins recently emerged in Apideas I am hoping will get mated.

Big flow on from the ivy as well. Queens are laying and the combs are dripping with nectar.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Mel I had kept an old queen ...

Nemphlar, I guess you're warning me to assume that my hive is queenless. I got cold feet myself, and yesterday 'sieved' them all through the queen excluder (as gently as I could - brushing the bees into an empty broodbox with QX above and brood nest above that) - still no queen. I have always been able to spot a queen when necessary, and I have now gone through this hive so many times and still did not see her. I also know that the mother queen is gone and that one virgin queen died. I was just nervous that there might be another virgin queen. I think I'll now unite them (but not with one of my queens from Jon).


I'm surprised to see so many of you are still doing inspections - weather must be alot kinder elsewhere. ...

No, FD - I've long since stopped inspecting the hives - since about the first week of August, but I opened them all again in the last week of August to add Apivar strips and check their stores. That's when I discovered I have a hive in trouble. It's been cold and windy up here a lot of the time.

Kitta

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi kitta.
Sorry to hear you have queenless hive after all.
After a while of being queenless I think they are very short on nurse bees.
Some stuff I have read suggest field bees can switch back to nursing but only about 10% do.
When you might have a queen and you do the QXcluder paper combo you hope the bees will unite and share hive resource including nurse bees from the colony with laying queen.
I'm with you though I would unite with another colony because even though replacing the missing queen is possible the bees are all probably over the hill (like me) [emoji4]

[Mellifera Crofter]

Thanks DR. I still have some bees emerging from that hive, but that's because I have twice added frames with eggs to see what will happen - and nothing happened. Normally that means there's a queen - but I think it's too late for that test to be accurate.

I thought you mentioned the queen-excluder way of uniting as a way of being cautious just in case the 'queenless' hive does have a queen - or did you mean two queens in one combined hive? Sorry for being a bit confused now.

I've got a hive prepared with a QX and a laying queen. I'll unite them tonight and check again after a week - just in case there's a queen in the top! One more chance to spot her.
Kitta

[Jon]

I have never heard of it being too late to draw queen cells if a test frame is offered to a queenless hive.
A colony with laying workers will often fail to draw queen cells on a test frame.

[Mellifera Crofter]

I did wonder about that, Jon - but this colony was never without brood, so I did not think laying workers would develop. Well, they were at times without eggs or larvae and with just capped brood (like now). Do you think that is enough for them to develop laying workers?
Kitta

PS: I added the first test frame not long after the queen mother would have disappeared. There were still some very young larvae, but they did not make use of that test frame or the one I gave them later.
K

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Kitta.
I have searched for a queen same as you and not found her.
Had no laying.
So used the Qx + paper trick and after a while lo and behold ,laying above and below the excluder. Many times over the years.
I marked a queen today in a hive I was getting ready to do something about because no laying and hadn't been able to see queen
I see what you mean because you have been adding test frames there will be bees of all ages.
I spent a while looking for a queen in a keiler double mininuc yesterday for a queen no joy.
Found her easily today though
She is long and slim carnie type would she do you or are you going Amm ?
She is laying well

[Jon]

You should see patchy looking drone brood and multiple eggs in cells if there are laying workers.
The colony should be ok if it has always had brood.

[The Drone Ranger]

Between tapatalk fat fingrrs and android touch keyboard I gave up trying to make the last post readable.
If you need a queen you can have this spare she is carniolan ish and laying
I havent figred out how to PM somebody on this tapatalk yet.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Thanks DR! I'll send a pm.
Kitta

[Mellifera Crofter]

... I asked for advice and was told it's too late for test frames to be accurate ...


... I have always been able to spot a queen when necessary ...


I have never heard of it being too late to draw queen cells if a test frame is offered to a queenless hive. ...

You're right, Jon - there was a queen! So my two test-frame results were accurate!

I also have to apologise for my assumption that I can spot a queen when necessary. Or perhaps not ... I was about to release DR's queen in my hive when I thought I'll look a final time - and found her - so, when it was necessary! She had to be sent off to bee heaven and replaced by DR's queen (but I hate regicide).

I've taken over your thread, Rowie. How are you getting on? And please note my warning that a test frame might be too late was wrong.
Kitta

PS: I just realised that that doesn't follow. If a hive really is queenless in September, and there aren't any drones about, will they still make queen cells?

[Adam]

PS: If a hive really is queenless in September, and there aren't any drones about, will they still make queen cells?

I'm sure they will - and they don't know that there aren't any drones about.

[Rowie]

Now have outcome for original query. Was pretty sure that hive was queenless and was going to unite with another. When I opened them up they also were queenless but had created lots of queen cells! Put a frame with one of these q.c.s into the original hive for a few days to see if they would tear it down. They didn't so I now had two queenless hives. Luckily a friend had a spare queen which I bought. Have now united the two colonies and the queen has been successfully introduced. All ready to go into the winter!

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Rowie
That was really bad luck losing two queens still its good to know you have fixed the problem thanks for the update

[Jon]

Loads of people have contacted me looking queens after MAQS treatment. This has definitely been a problem and my own limited experience using it on 10 colonies this year has not been positive.

[The Drone Ranger]

Its probably ok in honey season as I think folk inc yourself jon might have pointed out.
Bit risky as an autumn treatment though

[Mellifera Crofter]

... When I opened them up they also were queenless but had created lots of queen cells! Put a frame with one of these q.c.s into the original hive for a few days to see if they would tear it down. They didn't so I now had two queenless hives. ...

Thanks for the update, Rowie. I'm glad you're sorted now.

You've also shown that any doubts I might have had about bees drawing out queen cells in September was unfounded. Jon and Adam were right.
Kitta