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Author Topic: No queen cells in split  (Read 1743 times)

Offline Aroc

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No queen cells in split
« on: June 02, 2018, 09:40:28 pm »
A couple of days ago I asked the question if I should check to see if my walk away splits had queen cells started.  The splits were done about 8-10 days ago. I?m glad I asked and glad I took the advice.  One of the splits I checked doesn?t have any queen cells.  Brood,  open and capped but no eggs.  The larvae I do see appears to be 4-5 days old.  They have jelly in them but it doesn?t look shiny.  Almost looks dull like when paint starts to dry.  Could these be dead?  Could I have missed the queen rearing window?  I know I put frames with eggs in the split.

I?m going to give it another try.  I?ll grab some eggs from another hive.  If it fails again I?m going to just recombine.
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Offline Dustymunky

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Re: No queen cells in split
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2018, 10:11:49 pm »
How is the population in the hive without cells? They need a good population of nurse bees and resources to make good cells. If you can, give them a frame with newer comb. They can reform new comb easily into an emergency cell. It is odd they didnt try to make an emergency cell since they were split.

Offline Aroc

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Re: No queen cells in split
« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2018, 10:24:53 pm »
How is the population in the hive without cells? They need a good population of nurse bees and resources to make good cells. If you can, give them a frame with newer comb. They can reform new comb easily into an emergency cell. It is odd they didnt try to make an emergency cell since they were split.

Population is decent.  In hindsight I should have shaken more bees in there. Can I successfully add more nurse bees along with eggs?

I think I tried that last year and ended up with a robbing situation as the foragers went back to their own hive and told everyone about a good harvest just down the way.
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Offline Dustymunky

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Re: No queen cells in split
« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2018, 11:39:50 pm »
Nurse bees can be shaken in, no problem.

Offline JackM

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Re: No queen cells in split
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2018, 09:33:07 am »
Nurse bees can be shaken in, no problem.
 

And, how do you separate the nurse and field bees?  If you put in a frame of brood there isn't a problem.  Maybe because not queen right, but I sure could see the event causing robbing, depending on the flow.

I think if it were me I would find another frame with fresh eggs and try again, just take whatever is on the frame.  Maybe get the queen from the donor hive instead and the donor hive will requeen much faster (in my opinion) than just a straight split with fresh eggs.
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Offline Dustymunky

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Re: No queen cells in split
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2018, 11:47:09 am »
Nurse bees are all over open brood frames.  The fuzzy bees!  Not going to be 100% but foragers will go back to original hive, nurse bees will stay. Just dont shake a queen in ;) The point is you wanna have alot of nurse bees to feed that queen larvae.  Clocks ticking. Guessing you have at least a decent flow in Montana in late spring.

Offline beepro

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Re: No queen cells in split
« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2018, 04:53:08 am »
To avoid this issue, next time put the original hive with the queen in another location nearby.  Then put the
hive that has the eggs/young larvae in the position of the original hive to absorb all the foragers.  This way nothing is
loss that should give you bigger QCs.   Lauri's fly back method!   Works for me every time though I do 2 deep nuc boxes split now to compensate.

Offline little john

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Re: No queen cells in split
« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2018, 05:38:19 am »
Nurse bees can be shaken in, no problem.
 
And, how do you separate the nurse and field bees? 

The simplest way is to find a frame of open brood, shake the bees off, then place that frame in a box over the donor brood box with a Q/X in-between them.  Within an hour that frame will be covered in nurse bees.  Repeat the procedure or use two brood frames if you need more bees.  (I call this 'milking-off' nurse bees.)  Then donate one of those brood frames into the target hive along with one or both sets of nurse bees, depending on requirements.

There may well be a handful of foragers in the mix, but they'll simply fly back home as and when they get the opportunity to do so.
LJ
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Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: No queen cells in split
« Reply #8 on: June 04, 2018, 07:44:34 am »
Another quicker method is to take that frame of open brood out and put it in a open box for 10 minutes. The nurse bees will stay and the field bees will fly back to the hive.
Jim
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Offline little john

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Re: No queen cells in split
« Reply #9 on: June 04, 2018, 08:30:20 am »
Assuming of course that you know for certain that the queen isn't on that frame of brood ...
LJ
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Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: No queen cells in split
« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2018, 08:54:27 am »
That is true. Not that hard to verify.
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

 

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