Old Timer's Way of seeing if your Hive is Queenless.

[Groundhawg]

An Old Timer's Way of seeing if your Hive is Queenless.


If the Hive is Queenless the Bees will leave the Hive with their Wing's open like a "K" and walk around before they fly off. If there's a Queen they walk out with wings closed and fly off quick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEdQTgVNMJ0&t=201s

I know some ?Old Timer?s? but never heard of this.  Anyone else ever tried, tested this?

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Yes GH, I have witnessed K wing on queen-less hive.  My experience is that few bees K wing as a result of being queenless so it is not a for sure sign.  I have noticed a high percentage of queenless hives are loud and the bees exhibit nervousness.  To the countary, I currently have a queenless hive that is both calm and quiet.  Just today, I added a virgin queen to this queenless hive, the bees were so calm, as if all is well.

I?m a little suspicious of this queenless hive as the bees were too calm.  So in a few days I will check for queen cells before releasing the virgin queen.  I will also pay close attention to signs of queen acceptance or rejection.

Just a note, K wing can also be a sign of disease.
Blessings

[BeeMaster2]

GH,
You were calling a split queenless that was making queens. I have found that once a hive starts making queens, they calm down and act like they have a queen. Probably why the split acted like they are not queenless.
Jim

[Groundhawg]

I do not think you can depend on any one thing to be true of false when it comes to beekeeping.  Have never checked to see how bees fly/take off to decide if hive has a queen or not.  Lots of other ways I would check before believing/know a hive had a queen or not. 

[eltalia]

"I do not think you can depend on any one thing to be true of false
when it comes to beekeeping"

That statement does not hold water, at all.
Like, in the instance quoted a colony making
queen cells to capping stage is not in any way
"Queenless", ever.
It may well not be "Queenright", but where there
is brood morphing to Queen pupae and so emergence
the phereomone remains, in contrast to a queenless
colony which is devoid of phereomone causing
bees to "alturise"(word?) in creating their own
version which we label "laying worker".

Bill

[VermontHoneyBee]

When I was younger, we usually knew when a hive was queenless by the noise they made.  If we opened a hive and saw no nurse bees, that was also a sign that there was no queen.  A laying worker only has drones. The other way we could tell also was that the brood frames were full of honey.  If the queen is gone, all of the bees in the hive become forager and everyone just brings pollen or honey.  These are the sings we used to tell if a hive was queenless.

If we did fine a hive that was queenless, we did not have an option to go get a queen like we do here in the US.  So what we did is take a frame of eggs and donate it to the queenless hive with nurse bees.  They often would make a new queen and in a month or so the hive was on the road to recovery.

[eltalia]

(edit)
If we did fine a hive that was queenless, we did not have an option to go get a queen like we do here in the US.  So what we did is take a frame of eggs and donate it to the queenless hive with nurse bees.  They often would make a new queen and in a month or so the hive was on the road to recovery.

Funnily enough I have just read a post over on the FH forum where the
guy did exactly what Mr. Bush recommends in his book, and guess what
happened?
The LW bees ate the eggs, cleaned the cells and laid their own eggs in
the frame!!
Neat trick, hey... smart buggers them LWs, like :-))))

Bill