Shakeout - Second guessing

[Duane]

I had two boxes which were not progressing this spring as the other boxes.  In fact, no eggs/larva at all.  I added frames of brood to them.  After the queen cells had formed, I added 2 extra frames of brood to the fairly decent hive, to give them a boost.  (I could not locate a queen in other donor hives for the other one and so didn't add any to it).  After waiting the number of days, one (without the added brood) had capped brood, larva, and eggs most everywhere.  The one (with added brood) had a small cluster of drone cells, and multiple eggs in a few cells nearby. 

Question:  Did adding the 2 frames of brood to about 8 frames of bees (I added them to the box below the bees already in the box above) kill the queen cell or queen?

Thanks to previous advice, and experience, I wasn't going to mess with it any more.  The latest expected date for egg laying was the 8th, and this was the 23rd.  Either they didn't have a queen, or something was lacking in her.  And the other box was doing fine.  So I removed the box to another area, shook the bees out, added the frames to other boxes, and then saw the bees form a cluster in a nearby cedar tree.  In a previous shakeout, the bees dispersed.  I noticed them clustering early, and looked closely for a queen, but did not see one.  Today, a day later, I see them still in a small cluster.

Question:  Does this mean there was a queen?  Would bees cluster with laying workers?

[Bob Wilson]

I shook out a hopelessly queenless  hive a month ago. The bees balled that evening  and the next morning in two separate places, but dwindled and dispersed by lunch that second day.

[Acebird]

Question:  Did adding the 2 frames of brood to about 8 frames of bees (I added them to the box below the bees already in the box above) kill the queen cell or queen?

Maybe.  Maybe you did.  The queen calendar is very important.  If you don't know your dates I suggest waiting 60 days.  The results will be the same whether you inspect or not.

[Duane]

Acebird, I'm not sure what you mean.  I added the 8 frames prior to the queens hatching out.  I had waited about 41 days.

Waiting more days might have been good.  I'm was just comparing them with the other that I did the same time and so concluded the queen is not good if there was one.  I guess past experience of trying to limp bees along makes me a little trigger happy especially when I have several hives surviving the winter this time around.

Now, hindsight.  The cluster in the tree was about the size of a large grapefruit.  I had thought the colony was bigger than that.  I had removed the hive so all the workers went elsewhere.  Maybe some others, too.  Anyway, they went through two rain showers, and I saw bees (scouts?) dancing.  I got impatient, placed a mini-hive on top of another box nearby, collected as many bees as I could off the branch and placed near the hive.  Eventually, I saw agitation and soon they started going in.  I caught a glimpse of a queen and made a grab for her, but missed.  She was crawling on my hand and then flew.  I made a grab and thought I had caught something, waited awhile to make sure I didn't see any land, but when I got inside, there was nothing there.  The glimpse I saw, made me think she wasn't quite right.  But hard to tell in a split second.

So, now what?  A queen ready to lay is better than waiting for other queen cells.  But, if something's wrong with her, any point keep it going?  And there was nothing special about the source hive.  My gut feeling is to wait until they settle in the box, and then search and destroy her.

What would others do and the reasoning behind it: 
- Initially waited the 60 days whether some hives are fast and some slow?  I see now I misunderstood laying workers.  I thought they started in 3 weeks from the beginning of being without open brood, but now I wonder if it's 3 additional weeks from when there should be a queen laying?

- Call it quits now on her, or give her more house bees?

[iddee]

I would send her to queen heaven. I would never try to save a grapefruit size colony. It is just more trouble than it is worth.

[Acebird]

I would send her to queen heaven. I would never try to save a grapefruit size colony. It is just more trouble than it is worth.

Yup

[TheHoneyPump]

Go shake it out again.  This time much farther away, around behind a hill or building or whatever.  Somewhere that you cannot and will not see it afterwards.  Shake it out, redeploy the equipment to the colony(s) that show vigor and vitality.  And sleep well.