Queen laying

[bassman1977]

Can/will a queen start laying eggs if she has mated with a drone once or twice but still hasn't finished all of her mating flights?

[Robo]

Good question.  If I would have to guess, I would say no.  Once she starts laying she will not mate any more.  Virgin queens are relatively small in comparison and their abdomen fattens up once they are mated and then they start laying.  I would venture to guess that once they fatten up the mechanics of mating doesn't work ;) Why do you ask?

[jason58104]

According the the bible (the hive and the honeybee), virgin queens will mate with several drones on one or more mating flights.  Upon arriving back at  the hive she will start laying in 1 to 2 days.   This is one thing that this book is not very clear on.

[bassman1977]

Why do you ask?

In reference to this thread: http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,16432.0.html

I went back into the TBH around the 8th or the 9th and I found the stupid queen.  I don't know where she was the first time around because I searched every comb twice.  Anyway, since I found the queen I looked for eggs.  I did find a few but nothing like I would expect in comb which is nearly empty.  Two thoughts came to mind.  A) She's either a failed queen that they didn't replace for some reason.  B) She's a new queen (which I didn't see queen cells either so I was leaning more towards A, but still wanted to give her an opportunity to prove her self for a few more days.  She is a lot smaller than any of the other queens I have.

Well, I guess that hive is pretty much a lost cause unless I can get another queen in there, but even still, I don't think they'll build up in time for winter.

[Robo]

It is truly amazing how fast a queen can fatten up.  If I had to guess, they superseded or raised an emergency queen and she is just starting to lay.  Since you didn't have the queen marked, we will never know for sure :evil:  I'd give her a day or two and check back again.  Often it takes a few days for them to "get going".   Then again, I'm not a big fan of emergency/supersedure queens as I have experienced a higher rate of failures with them.

[bassman1977]

I did leave out a piece of info, accidentally.  Like I mentioned, it was around the 8th or 9th when I found the queen.  It was yesterday (12th) when I went back in to look for more action.  I'm with you though.  I think I'll wait a few more days and see what happens or at least see if there is a noticeable difference in her size.