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Author Topic: No sign of queen  (Read 1842 times)

Offline EastCentralMNbees

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No sign of queen
« on: August 15, 2018, 09:30:49 am »
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

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #1 on: August 15, 2018, 10:18:26 am »
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
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline DeepCreek

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #2 on: August 15, 2018, 10:34:04 am »
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.

Offline EastCentralMNbees

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #3 on: August 15, 2018, 10:45:09 am »
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.

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #4 on: August 15, 2018, 10:51:11 am »
It sounds like the bees shut down the queen.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline EastCentralMNbees

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #5 on: August 15, 2018, 11:31:10 am »
I guess I will see how they do.

Offline EastCentralMNbees

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2018, 11:31:38 am »
Thanks for the advice

Offline Oldbeavo

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #7 on: August 15, 2018, 05:45:03 pm »
If you move a frame of brood and eggs from the Italian hive to the Carny hive, if it is queenless they will draw a queen cell.
IF the have a queen then you have added some bees and some you bees when the brood hatches. When you add the new frame sprinkle everyone with some icing sugar to mask the new bees, plus they will enjoy licking it off each other.

Offline beepro

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2018, 09:10:49 pm »
Be careful when you sprinkle the sugar on the bees.  Some will fall into the larvae cells killing them.

I would do a combine after the frame of eggs/larvae test when they are indeed queen less.  This way you will have one
hive that survive this winter.  Then you can expand again in the Spring.   Don't wait to see what will happen next. 

What will happen next is that  the queen less hive will withered away this winter without a laying queen to keep the hive going.  By
combining hive resources there is a chance that the Italians hive will survive this winter.   So add a frame of eggs/larvae to see if they
will make any QCs for a test first.   This will determine what you need to do for the next step.

Offline EastCentralMNbees

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #9 on: August 16, 2018, 12:49:43 am »
Is icing sugar the same as powdered sugar?

Offline sc-bee

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #10 on: August 16, 2018, 06:43:48 am »
If the hive has plenty bees why move the bees at all.... just add the frame with eggs minus bees. Jim states leave it out ten minutes so forgers will fly back and you will be adding just nurse bees, The hive will have no issue with nurse bees. Sometimes I just shake them at the entrance and let the forges get airborne and the nurse bees will file in...
« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 10:22:58 am by sc-bee »
John 3:16

Offline EastCentralMNbees

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #11 on: August 16, 2018, 10:44:22 am »
Does it matter where in the brood nest I take a frame? Does it matter where I out it in the receiving hive?

Offline ed/La.

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #12 on: August 16, 2018, 04:54:56 pm »
as long as there is eggs take any frame. I like to put donor frame in middle of cluster with pollen and honey near by. Sometimes I will put clean empty drawn comb in middle of brood of one my favorite queens. Mark frame with penney for easy retrieval. Remove in 3 days and give to queenless hive. Repeat in week  if necessary.

Offline beepro

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #13 on: August 18, 2018, 05:27:38 pm »
"Is icing sugar the same as powdered sugar?"

Confectioner sugar is not the same as powdered sugar.  I made my own powder sugar from
the regular C&H sugar and other brands of sugar in a small commercial powder grinding machine.  This is also the process I use to make plenty of sugar bricks by grinding the sugar to a fine powder first.

The icing sugar has corn flour mixed with powder sugar which is not the same as pure powdered sugar.  Either way if any hit the developing larvae they will be kill.  That is why I don't use the sugar dusting method at all after learning about this side effect.

Also, in between the foragers and young nurse bees, there is another level of bees, the comb guard bees.  They are just a bit mature than the young nurse bees in the hive.  Their job is to safeguard the comb, young nurse bees and developing larvae.  They are not the typical guard bees that fly to sting you when you approach the hive.  They are a bit immature than the guard bees or foragers. They do not fly or feed the developing larvae. The next step is for them to turn into some of the foragers or guard bees.

So by leaving the frame of bees out of the hive for an extended time, these comb guard bees will not leave the frame that they're trying to protect.  And since they are a bit older than the young nurse bees, they will not hesitate to be aggressive toward any foreign new queen that they have contact with.  So if there is an old queen inside the present hive and you add this frame of new bees in, they might ball on the old queen.
Listen for the queen's intense piping sound when she is caught by the balling bees.  If the balling is extensive then most likely one of her hind legs will be disabled--not salvageable.  What a waste of a good laying queen!

Be careful when adding new foreign bees into a suspected queen less hive.  To be safe, I would get rid of all the attaching bees from the frame first before adding it to the queen less hive.  What a sad way for me to learn after killing too many good queens that I raised.

Offline EastCentralMNbees

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #14 on: August 20, 2018, 05:18:13 pm »
Thank you for the information. I went through the donor hive looking for a good frame to donate but didn't find or couldn't see any eggs. What should I do now? Would both queens stop laying all together. The donor hive did have some small larva but nothing younger.

Offline beepro

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #15 on: August 21, 2018, 04:02:37 am »
This is rather strange to me.  If your flow has stop then in a short season bee environment the carnis hive should be the
one that shut down first.  The Italians hive should maintain a small patch of eggs/larvae.   It could be that both hives are
queen less now.   Sometime the queen will suddenly disappeared from the hive without any reason.  I have that happened to
me 3 years ago during the summer months.

In order to save this hive I would combine the 2 hives together asap.   Your winter is coming up fast so make sure they are
mite free and feed to weight.   Combining will save the 2 hives.  It is better than letting them all die.   2 more months will be
winter time so you need to do this fast.   Combine and feed to weight.   There is still time to do it for the Autumn flow if you have any.

If both hives are queen less then now is the right time to buy them a mated queen.   Take this opportunity to source the tf queens as
others are consolidating their hives for the winter now.  Ebay should give you some infos.  Not sure about amazon.

If not flow then you have to feed them starting now.  I already gave my honey water, sugar bricks and homemade high protein patty subs.  This
will maintain the hive population through our summer dearth in time for the mini Autumn flow here.   While you're at it start thinking about how you
would overwinter them.    Winter is fast approaching this year!

Offline EastCentralMNbees

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #16 on: August 21, 2018, 04:08:55 pm »
I was unable to find either of the queens in these hives. The patterns that the queens had when they were producing was good. I'm worried that if I buy new queens they won't lay either if it is an environmental factor causing the cut back in laying. Or should there always be eggs in the hive?

Offline beepro

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Re: No sign of queen
« Reply #17 on: August 21, 2018, 07:21:06 pm »
"Or should there always be eggs in the hive?"

In your present situation I would buy them a mite resistant mated queen, fast!  Not much time left before winter time.

I don't know about your carnis queen there.  For the Italians the queen always have small patches of eggs/larvae.  She will
never shut down completely even during our worse summer dearth here.  That is the only reason that I keep them as oppose to
the carnis.   So you should always see some eggs unless it is the coldest part of winter with a dwindling hive. 

With supplement feeding because of a dwindling hive, the queen will continue to lay.   I like to keep the newly mated late summer
queens so that they will lay through out our mild winter environment with supplement feeding.  So the environment issue can be
corrected with supplement feeding.  See my you tube vid from last night.    Oh, delete the hyphen - between you tube to see it.

https://www.you_tube.com/watch?v=60hcKEcs4GE&feature=youtu.be