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No sign of queen

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EastCentralMNbees:
I inspected my two hive yesterday. One Italian and one carnoilan (sp?). The Italian had a lot of brood capped and larva. The other had  a small amount of capped brood and zero larva. Both hives had a lot of resources and were very calm. My question is the carnoilan already preparing for winter or has my queen died? If the queen is dead would it be too late to get a new queen? Could I move bees from the other hive even though they are different bees? Sorry so long I know I have to do something quick with winter coming. Please help

BeeMaster2:
Welcome to Beemaster.
Very good questions.
If there are no flows, which I would expect, there is a good chance the one queen did shut down. It takes a lot of nectar and pollen to feed brood. Are your bees bringing in pollen? Carnolian are much better at shutting down their brood production than Italian bees are.
Did the bees start back filling the brood nest with nectar.
If necessary, you can combine these two hives or move frames of bees between the 2 hives. I like to leave a frame to be moved out of the hives for 10 minutes to allow the field bees to fly back to the hive. This leaves the nurse bees on the frame.
Jim

DeepCreek:
I would add that you stated that both hives had a lot of resources, I'm assuming you mean pollen, nectar?  Therefore the queen at this time may slow down somewhat, but shouldn't shut down.  It's not to late to "get" a queen, which is what you asked.  It may be to late to "raise" a queen and get her properly mated.  You can build up a weaker hive with a stronger one, but there's a few things you have to take into consideration.  Strengthening a hive though will do you no good if you don't have a queen.  Carni's and Italians can be mixed, a lot of bee's are mutts anyway.

EastCentralMNbees:
Yes carnoilan did start backfilling the brood nest with nectar and there was a full half frame of pollen. Can I get some ideas of which way I should go? Would I be better off letting them figure it out and if they make it great otherwise just sliot the other ones in the spring if they make it so I don't run into the same problem every year.

BeeMaster2:
It sounds like the bees shut down the queen.
Jim

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