I have been involved with installing a few packages in the past and they took off with no effort. I put a 3 lb package of Italian bees and a queen in my own backyard three weeks ago and am struggling to understand what is happening. After the first week I checked the package and found the bees clustered around the internal feeder (design based on beesource.com), but it seemed as if they were in similar numbers to the week before. No comb and I couldn't find the queen. The weather hadn't been great and would roller coaster between the 50s and 70s (F). I didn't worry about the queen due to the large cluster and not wanting to break it up too much. The Queen was clipped and had a white dot that was clearly visible, but I figured she was hidden in the mass.
That was two weeks ago. Today I opened my hive for the second time. It was perfectly clean. There were about half the bees and no comb. The queen was no where to be found. Bees were inside with yellow pollen on their legs and they were all hanging out on the feeder in about the same way as before. The flying bees were taking about four different paths in and out of the hive. It's about 75 degrees here today and sunny. I'm not sure whether to go ahead and buy a new queen, buy a whole package, or wait and watch. It disturbs me that no comb has been produced. Most of the beekeepers I know are fairly new as well and were at a loss.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Jackie
Topic: Newbie and a new package problem (Read 1287 times)