Queen Questions?

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lowfog01
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Post by lowfog01 » Sun. Jun. 02, 2013 5:15 am

Soo... I thought the new queens would be happily installed in their hives by now and my bee management would be reduced to watching the "girls" fill comb after comb of surplus honey for my consumption the rest of the summer. Ha, that lasted about 2 days. The small hive, the Lola hive, has accepted the queen and is producing eggs and larva to beat the band. Wahoo!

The Casper hive, not so much. All outside appearances are that there is a queen present in the hive but and it's a big but, there is no evidence of eggs or larva on the inside. And there is very little capped brood cells to replace hatching bees. There are plenty of empty cells for the queen to lay eggs in. The foragers are bringing in pollen and nectar and the house bees are building comb to beat the band; all signs of a queen but no eggs or larva. It's been a full week since I released the queen into the hive so there is still an outside chance she may starting laying in the next day or two.

If not, I have a couple of options. 1) I can take a comb with eggs from the other hive and let the girls in Casper raise a new queen from that. That will take about 20 - 25 days. During that time no new bees will be hatching and the hive's strength will decline drastically. Or 2) I can find another queen locally and install it in the hive that day. I'm going to go with that. This time of year there should be a lot of local queens available and the sooner I get one the sooner the hive will be back on the right path. I'd also think about taking a comb of capped worker cells from the other hive and putting it in Casper. This is the primary reason that folks say you need to have 2 hives for.

Hopefully, I'll have this worked out by Tuesday. Take care, Lisa

 
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freetown fred
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Post by freetown fred » Sun. Jun. 02, 2013 6:26 am

I know you've heard this one Lisa---a watched pot never seems to boil ;) Let the Queen do her stuff :)

 
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Post by McGiever » Sun. Jun. 02, 2013 9:07 am

Something is amiss...

As you have described...the bees appear to be "queenright" in that they have some bee that they reqconize to be the queen.
There are a few senerios that might exist, but regards, you need a laying queen...now.
A *top bar hive*, as opposed to the Langstroth, changes the manipulations rquired to correct this situation.
But, in any case, a new "laying queen" will be required.

First task is remove or eliminate the "now recqonized queen"...leaving no doubt of her absentence.
Then it is best to leave the hive queenless for a day to allow the bees to more readily accept a newly introduced queen.

Lisa, I will PM you so you may get some detailed procedures. :)


 
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Post by lowfog01 » Sat. Jun. 08, 2013 1:29 pm

The hives are as they were in the last post. Bees are coming and going from both of them indicating each has a productive queen in it. Despite this I didn't think the Casper hive had a good queen in it. I didn't see eggs or larva.

Because of that Thursday, I took some eggs and young larva from the Lola hive (I've seen that queen and she is doing well) and put it in the Casper hive. With eggs and young larva, the hive can raise its own queen and get back to making me honey. As a bonus the comb I moved over already had a queen cell on it that looked like it was a day or two from hatching. That is a good thing. But if it did hatch the rain delayed the new queen's maiden flights to meet with the drones and her collecting of sperm so nothing was gained time wise to getting a new queen. Hopefully, she is out meeting with the guys today between rain showers. Then she needs a couple of days to start laying properly. Outwardly, it still looks as if the Casper hive is "queen right" meaning it has a good, productive queen. However, it doesn't because there are no eggs or young larva present.

The first day I can go into the Casper hive and realistically expect to see actually evidence of a queen is Tuesday or Wednesday. By then I should see eggs, larva and some capped new bee cells. If I don't well... on to Plan B. I'm just waiting and watching; trying to pick up clues as to what is going on in the hive from the outside. Waiting is always hard for me, I have been accused of having ADHD by more than a few folks. :) I'll try to post something as soon as I know what's going on in that hive. Take care, Lisa

 
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Post by dcrane » Sun. Jun. 09, 2013 7:22 am

try dissection in the "wild" like us real men :lol: Just kidding... this is my friend wade doing it as I was standing 1 mile away :lol:
Disection of wild hive in tree.jpg
.JPG | 154.4KB | Disection of wild hive in tree.jpg

 
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lowfog01
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Post by lowfog01 » Sun. Jun. 09, 2013 8:01 am

dcrane wrote:try dissection in the "wild" like us real men :lol: Just kidding... this is my friend wade doing it as I was standing 1 mile away :lol:
Disection of wild hive in tree.jpg
Wow - I don't think I could put my ungloved hands in that. Incredible!


 
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Post by KLook » Sun. Jun. 09, 2013 9:10 am

There is no think about it for me Lisa! I have seen these guys though. Every year they come to town to deliver the rental bees and some of them are nuts. On a better note, we are about to close on a house so I will be able to establish a hive. Looking forward to it.

Kevin

 
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Post by dcrane » Mon. Jun. 10, 2013 5:06 am

lowfog01 wrote:
dcrane wrote:try dissection in the "wild" like us real men :lol: Just kidding... this is my friend wade doing it as I was standing 1 mile away :lol:
Disection of wild hive in tree.jpg
Wow - I don't think I could put my ungloved hands in that. Incredible!
Yea ....ole Wade was an MMA fighter before they had sponsored MMA fights (he just did it in parking lots around local towns, he was always respectful after he beat your azz though and shook your hand :lol:)
I think something about the smoke makes them calm and not fear him (after all, he did go through great efforts to save this wild hive and give them a good home so maybe they knew that somehow).

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