Hungry Queen

[Neonach]

A fortnight ago I transferred 3 Q cells to a hive that had lost a queen a couple of months ago. Today I found a hatched queen and marked her. However she was moving very slowly and seemed to lack vigour. The colony about her has kept going over the past few months by raising drones, but has slowly been losing strength. I see them out foraging, and they have both pollen and some stores, but not much. Just a few grubs - they will I'm sure still be drones, as I doubt the Queen is yet mated. I put a tray of syrup on last week, but it has scarcely been touched. I am wondering if the colony lacks the age of workers - nurse bees? - to feed the Queen. I have a feeling that urgent action may be necessary, but not sure what it is. Should I try shaking bees into the hive off a frame from a strong colony? Or transferring a frame of brood with nurse bees on? I'm looking to do something about this tomorrow, Saturday, so advice advice that can be offered now would be much appreciated!

[Adam]

If the colony definitely lost the queen a couple of months ago and is now producing drones then I would suspect a laying worker problem. If so it is difficult to get the colony in balance (almost a lost cause) - as they often kill intrduced queens and once they get to laying worker state they have a death wish by all accounts. It has been suggested that a frame of brood a week will eventually result in a laying worker colony starting to make queencells. As you have a queen in there now, a frame of brood may be enough to get the hive going and allow the queen to mate. Pheromones from brood inhibit worker ovary development.

Maybe a better option would be to cage the queen and put her in a nuc with 2 frames of (sealed) brood and adhering bees plus stores from another colony. Close in for 3 days and then hope she mates. The laying worker colony can be shaken out in front of another full-sized hive as it is not much use as it is. Once the queen mates and starts to lay a frame of sealed brood could be given to the nuc from a strong colony. However is it getting late in the year in the Outer Hebrides for this malarky and would you just be better shaking the laying worker colony in front of other hives?

Question: Have you looked at the eggs in the colony? Laying worker eggs tend to be at the side of the cell - abdomen not long enough to get to the bottom -, so not at the bottom of the cell, and often there are more than one egg per cell too. the brood pattern of a laying worker hive tends to be more random that the more usual pattern of a drone laying queen.

As bees mature their ability to produce brood food diminishes and they become foragers. However even if a bunch of old bees are dumped in a hive with a queen they can regenerate their broodfood bits (hypopharangeal glands) so they will be able to look after the queen and rear young bees.

[gavin]

It doesn't look like you can salvage this at this time of year. As Adam says, if the colony is raising drones and is queenless you will have laying workers - but then they would not have tolerated your introduced queen cells. How sure are you that i) the colony was queenless, and ii) that one of the introduced queen cells hatched? You may have now, and have had, a drone laying queen. In the right season they can be re-queened but it isn't easy and doesn't work all the time.

Once a queen starts laying eggs of any type, that's it. She will not fly to mate after that. And if you do have an unmated virgin in the colony don't mark her until she is well-established and laying well.

[Neonach]

How sure are you that i) the colony was queenless, and ii) that one of the introduced queen cells hatched?

The colony was apparently queenless for just over 2 months (though the last week or more with queen cells introduced). During that time I made several thorough inspections, and there weren't very many bees I could be pretty sure about what I was seeing. No queen seen! Poorly organized use of cells. The drones were emerging from elongated worker cells. Eggs laid on the side of cells, not at bottom.

An update: yesterday I found a number of cells in the frame with the new queen 1 or 2 day old larvae. Using a maginifying glass, I found some were on the side of the cell, but at the base, but others bang in the middle of the base. These were old well-drawn cells, so a good depth, and I'm minded to believe that only the queen could do this. Of course they could yet prove to be infertile and therefore drones, but I'm not sure she'd start laying so soon (a week) after hatching if she wasn't mated. The workers previously laying drones should have been supressed by the presence of a queen. I know I'm playing around with partial and superficial knowledge on my part, but I believe the indications are that the colony was queenless, one of the introduced queencells hatched and the queen is now mated. Another week or two and I'll start to see better evidence: three weeks or so from now I should know for sure!

[Adam]

Fingers crossed that it's a well mated laying queen you have. 10 days or so from emergence to laying is quite reasonable. It is apparently usual for laying workers to reject queens.... However I wonder if the pheromone generated by 3 queencells was enough to ensure one of them to be allowed to mate once emerged. (I.e. triple pheromone was enough to kick the colony into behaving properly?).
A complete guess on my part of course.
I would not usually suggest three due to the risk of casts but maybe it worked.

Please let us know if you have a drone layer or a good-un.

[Neonach]

However I wonder if the pheromone generated by 3 queencells was enough to ensure one of them to be allowed to mate once emerged. (I.e. triple pheromone was enough to kick the colony into behaving properly?).


Now that's interesting idea Adam, because I now realize I'd noticed that after I introduced the queen cells, the number of drones being produced started markedly to diminish. At the time I vaguely thought this was due to ageing and dyeing-off of the workers, but now I see I may have unwittingly done something that is usually wrong (nothing new there!), but under the circumstances may have been just the trick!

I'll be posting updates, here and on the blog pages.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Neonach.
I hope you do have a queen now

If you have to tackle the problem another time it might be better to set up a nuc near the drone laying hive.
You stock it with emerging brood
You need a very small entrance because you will lose most of the flying bees back to their parent hives
make sure they have a frame of food because they won't be gathering any
Introduce your queen cell to the nuc the young bees will accept the queen easily
She will probably take a little longer to mate but will do so .
when she is laying (there will be plenty adult bees now) move the drone layer hive away 6 ft or so.
The bees from the drone layer fly out gathering and will try to join the nuc on their return
The bees in the nuc will bounce any who they don't like.
problem is all the bees you get from the drone layer are old anyway so is it really worth the agro ??

[Adam]

is it really worth the agro ?

Probably not, you just do it because you can I suppose.