When do bees know they are queenless?

[Aroc]

Just a quick question.

How long does it take for bees to realize they are queenless. 

If you split a hive how long does the box without the queen take to realize they are queenless?

[iddee]

Less than 2 hours. Maybe just minutes.

[BeeMaster2]

2 hours for the entire hive to know it is queenless. It takes only a few minutes for the bees to start showing signs that they are queen less.
Jim

[beepro]

When I inspected the 4 deep tall nuc hives within 15-20 minutes the nuc is roaring with
bees fanning everywhere.   So I say 20 mins max.   When I stack the nucs on top of a queen right
hive they don't roar and fan their wings.    Next time you can time it by taking a box of bees off a
queen right hive to see how long they will fan and become restless.   This is how I can tell when a
nuc hive is without a queen in it.  Somehow the bees behave differently than a queen right hive.

[little john]

As already said, it's almost impossible to put a precise figure on this as detection is almost certainly pheromone-related - so for a while there will be some residual pheromone circulating - but some bees can somehow detect a change almost at once (within a minute or two), whilst many - perhaps those used to lower levels of pheromone in areas of the hive further away from the brood area - will take a lot longer (an hour or two) to 'catch on' - but once the message starts to spread, then panic soon sets-in throughout the whole colony.

I can remember times when I've pulled a choice queen for marking (the only ones I ever mark), and after painting and then waiting for the paint to dry and harden - some 20-30 minutes - I've returned that queen to her colony with it not appearing to have noticed her absence.  At other times, I've no sooner put the queen in a carry-cage, when colony distress has already started ...
LJ

[GSF]

Reading these posts may also explain why once you start removing frames for inspection they go to roaring. Maybe we're airing out the frames removing the queen's scent sooner.

[Acebird]

Next time you can time it by taking a box of bees off a
queen right hive to see how long they will fan and become restless.

I have never witnessed this and I have done about 10 splits by the box.  They don't roar, they don't fan, they don't do anything initially.  I think they call a meeting of the minds and decide what to do about their situation.  I use to be able to tell by population drift where the queen right hive is but on this last split I did how I placed the hives made a difference.  It looks like I am going to have to open the hives to figure out what resulted.

[AR Beekeeper]

"First symptoms of queen loss in a honey bee colony"  Apidologie 35 (2004) 565-573.

First indications of worker awareness of queen loss occurred 50 minutes after queen removal, peaked at 165 minutes.

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Apidologie: a peer review journal of insects, AR is denoting the pages and the publication year.  Thank you AR.

[little john]

Apidologie: a peer review journal of insects, AR is denoting the pages and the publication year.  Thank you AR.

Hi Van - suggest you read the paper before you get too impressed with that data.
LJ

How very rude of me - not supplying a link.  Apologises.
https://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/2004/07/M4040.pdf

[beepro]

This one for Ace!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJHxA8J5fqk

When I present my infos many do not believe me.  So one season way back I put things on videos to document my bees' behaviors.  At 1:55 I switched my cam from the restless, queen less hive to a calmer queen right hive.  At 40 seconds on, in the queen less hive, you can see these bees are restless and crawling all over the frames bumping into the food plastic film.  The queen right hive have calmer bees and they don't bump into the film. 
I can say that if you ask 10 different beekeepers then you will get 10 different answer. Why?  Because their local bee environment and the type of bees they keep are different from yours. And so are their beekeeping experience is different from yours too.  My beekeeping experience is a lot different than the normal beekeepers.  I like to do little bee experiment to find out when I don't have the answer.  In this vid, Ace, you can clearly see the restless bees versus the queen right calmer bees in 2 different hives when I made the split.  You are welcome to go though my other old vids too.  Let's see what you can find out.  I almost forgot about these vids until you mention about your bees on a split.   Just because you have not experienced it yet do not mean they don't exist.   Seeing is believing, right!

My notes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1pLI6O_TmU

[Acebird]

I knew I should have taken video.  From now on I will.
Keep in mind I do not tear the whole brood nest apart looking for larvae and I do not make splits by the frame.

[Michael Bush]

>How long does it take for bees to realize they are queenless. 

As Jim already said, minutes for most of them and two hours for all of them.

[eltalia]

Concur... and once again something so easily tested.
The immediate stress bees display on placing a queen in a clip
should tellya she is on the colony's radar at all times.

Bill

[beepro]

Ace, maybe I've done it all wrong all these years.   I still split my hives by the frames and break down the entire
brood nest to try to find eggs, larvae and the queen.   Is this the wrong beekeeping practice?
On a split if I don't give them the brood frames then in one month time there will be no more bees to tend to the
developing larvae.  But this is how I do it all these years at queen rearing time.