21 days to start supercedure

[HensandBees]

I have just been reading suggestions re causes of supercedure and the final one has left me a bit baffled ... a throwaway line of ' if the queen does not start to lay after 21 days after intrododucing a package to a new hive '.... where do the bees get the eggs from with which to supercede the non laying queen? or are they trying to supercede with workers eggs ? ....any thoughts?

[HensandBees]

so thats a dont know either then?

[gavin]

Baffled too. I'd have thought packages would have introduced mated queens laying within days (not that I've ever dream of getting a package).

If you introduce a virgin (or let a natural one hatch) then they would normally start laying after around 3 weeks, plus or minus a fortnight. Depends partly on the strength of the colony and the amount of brood to hatch. Queens that come into lay after 4-5 weeks can be very good ones and not supercedure candidates.

However your author sounds very confused. Give him/her 2/10 and get a different book, if it was a book.

Gavin

[Jon]

I think the author must be saying 'supersedure' when he means replacement. ( ie the beekeeper puts in a replacement queen rather than the bees rearing one themselves.
Other than that, it makes no sense.
An introduced queen in a package which has not produced brood within 21 days has almost certainly been killed on introduction.
You would be supposed to wait for a while before checking, but in a situation like this I would check for eggs after 5-7 days.
A newly introduced queen can be balled if you look too early as full acceptance can take a while.
I have no experience of package bees but I have made up plenty of nucs by introducing a mated queen to a few frames of bees and brood.
I imagine it is a US book if it is talking about packages although I think Easybee still sell packages made up of bees and imported Carniolan queens.

[HensandBees]

well spotted re continent.... it was Morse who said it....but I have seen it in an article somewhere ele but I forget where.....(been doing a lot of reading recently.......) can now concentrate on hands on ... hey ho til the next time

[Adam]

If the (package) queen is dead and there is no way that the workers can produce a queencell then you'll get laying workers. (At least with a nuc the colony can raise their own queen even if a bit small). The presence of brood inhibits laying worker development as well as a queen of course. I don't know if the 21 days (mistakenly) refers to the 3 weeks that brood could be available in a more usual colony or if it takes - say - up to 3 more weeks for laying workers to start their feindish activity.
The acitivity of laying workers will produce loads of drones and the colony will die out. I guess genetically the swamping of the area with drones is a way of ensuring that colony reproduces and survives - sort of??
Cue Jon with genetics...
Adam