Is my queen being rejected and what should I do?

[Echium]

My hive was just booming the last few months and swarmed about three weeks ago.  I made the mistake of destroying the rest of the queen cells out of fear of more swarming.  So for the last three weeks, as far as I have been able to tell, they have been queenless.  If there is any virgin queen, I have not seen her and have not seen any eggs either.  At this point there is also zero brood.  The bees have even been backfilling the broodnest with nectar.  So I ordered a new queen and today I put her in the hive with a frame of brood from another hive.  I checked the hive beforehand and there was no indication of any queen or laying workers.  When I introduced the queen there was no sign of aggression toward her at all.  I thought everything would be okay!  After a few hours I went back to the hive and noticed that the bees are buzzing a lot more, just seem louder than they were before.  Some of them were also fanning at the entrance.  I am worried that they are upset about this new queen and are going to kill her.  Should I take her out?  Do you think there is a queen somewhere in there??  Or are they just buzzing more because they are happy to finally have a queen?  They seem agitated.  Have I waited too long and now there is little chance they will accept her?  Any advice is greatly appreciated!

[splitrock]

I think you should relax and enjoy the sights echium, they will sort things out now that they have a queen again.

Joel

[AllenF]

Did you leave the queen in the queen cage or just let her go in the hive from the start?  If she is still in the queen cage, let them release her on their own. 

And if they are filling the brood area with honey after they swarmed this time of the year, how much open space do you have in the hive?   How many boxes and of what kind?  Sounds like they needed more space a couple of weeks ago.

[Kathyp]

they backfill when they have no queen.  they have nothing else to do.  by all means, make sure that your new queen will have a place to lay.  also, do not be in a rush to release her.  i have left them in the cage for as long as 5 days (forgot about it) and all was well.  make sure the candy end is up so that it does not get blocked by any attendants that die in the cage and then wait for a bit.  if they don't let her out, you can do it in a few days.

if you release her, make sure you do it down in the hive so you don't have her flying off of dropping in the grass.  pull a few frames, stick your hands down in there, peel off the screen on the box , let her walk out onto a  frame that is not all honey,  and then very carefully put the hive back together.  if there is no screen or if you don't want to peel it, pull the plug on the cage and put it back on a frame that is not all honey and let her walk out. 

[Echium]

I use all 8 frame mediums and had a full box of undrawn frames on top, and the bees weren't touching it.  There is a total of 6 boxes, one of which is completely packed with capped honey.  The honey filled box I moved to the top.  I plan to extract it pretty soon, once I get the extracting equipment I ordered.  My hope is now that they have a queen they will move the nectar out of the brood area and put it in a better place.  I put the cage in with the candy side down!  Now I am paranoid they won't be able to reach her if her attendants die and plug it up!  I wasn't sure how to put the cage in - I had to take a whole frame out to make space for the cage.  The frames that the cage is in between are much further apart than normal, so I am expecting (and not looking forward to it) to find a bunch of burr comb.  I went into the bee yard today just to see how the bees were acting and they are very awake and active, extremely busy at the entrance, and louder than normal.  I hope this is just a happy excitement over the queen.  There was still some fanning behavior which I am taking as a positive sign.  Crossing my fingers!

[Kathyp]

next time you check just turn it over. 

if the honey in the brood area is capped, they most likely won't move it unless they eat it. 

if you can be more specific about where you live, you can get some suggestions that are more area specific.  it's about time to get ready for winter for most of us, but if you are in a milder area, there might be different things that you need to do....or can do.

[AllenF]

You can place empty frames back into the brood area to open it up to help them out when you check that queen cage.  Do you have small hive beetles in your area?  If you do, they could get into you honey super on top and ruin it while you are waiting to extract.  You can store honey supers in a freezer while waiting to extract.   It kills off all the bugs in there.

[L Daxon]

Echium,

I read something from Michael Bush not too long ago that said basically anytime you destroy queen cells you run the risk of ending up queenless, just as you did.  That is why I started leaving any queen cells I see alone.  If the old queen is failing, the bees know that better than you, and you could be killing her replacement if you take out supercedure cells. 

If they are out of space and need to swarm, regardless of what you do (give them more space, kill the extra queen cells, etc.) they may take off any way with the old queen and again, you have just killed her replacement -- which sounds like what happend to you.  I plan on letting my hives just raise their own queens as they need them, unless someone can tell me why I shouldn't. 

[fish_stix]

There's no reason not to let them raise their own queen unless, for some reason, you want to change from one breed to another. They've been doing this for millions of years now and pretty much have it down pat! In fact they're a lot better at it than we are when we manipulate them to raise queens. I learned a long time ago to never cut cells. Chances are about 98% of the time the bees will swarm anyway, once cells are being built. Secondly, the "stay home" bees are expecting to see the "leave home" bees actually leave. Prime time to take the old queen and some brood and bees and make a split. Win-win situation as opposed to a lose-lose situation.

[tecumseh]

Echium....  California, as I suspect you know, is a very large state.  If it was situated in the east it would run from the Gulf Coast all the way to the Mason-Dixon Line.  So determining what a hive should be doing could be somewhat to highly dependent on where in California you are located.... general description like southern, northern or central works fine for me. 

an Echium snip:
So for the last three weeks, as far as I have been able to tell, they have been queenless.  If there is any virgin queen, I have not seen her and have not seen any eggs either.  At this point there is also zero brood.  The bees have even been backfilling the broodnest with nectar.

tecumseh:
three weeks is not enough time to determine if you have a new queen on board or not.  do the math... 12 days from larvae to emerged new queen, then add another 2 weeks for maturation and mating.  at this point all you might expect in the hive is eggs....  to get to larvae (which are a bit easier to see) add another 4 days.

at this point I am uncertain as to your prior experience????  but often time I have informed folks that a hopelessly queenless hive and one with even a virgin act quite differently.  sometimes you need to trust your own instincts here and if a hive appears organized and it behavior is not erratic then quite likely you have a gueen on board (she just isn't ready to lay yet).  disturbance of any hive known to have a virgin should be held to an absolute minimum since any intervention raises the possibility that the hive will murder the young virgin.  once larvae in in the hive in some quantity this hazard evaporates.

finally... if I was very uncertain as to  the queenless/queen right nature of the hive and if I had another hive handy I would likely add 1 frame of very young brood right in the center of the hive's brood area.   

[OzBuzz]

Echium, just my 2c worth and some of what i will suggest has already been mentioned - wait atleast five days before you go back in to the hive to check if the Queen has been released. The Queen, if she has been accepted, will be fed by the bees in the hive so she can often stay in the cage longer but five days is enough for acceptance. As Kathy said - if she hasn't been released then gently release her. She will run down between the frames and the bees will likely corwd around her a little and preen her (atleast that's my experience). After you have done that i wouldn't do any manipulations to the hive at all for atleast ten days otherwise the workers may kill her... it's a nervous wait i know but patience is the key. Also,one thing that i have noticed is that if you put your ear on the lid of a queenright hive compared to a queenless hive you can notice the difference in pitch and tone - a queenright hive has a happy little hum whereas a queenless hive has a roar that can easily be differentiated BUT do not use the ear on the lid as the only method for ascertaining queen status