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Who thinks I will find the queen tomorrow so I can requeen?

yes
4 (66.7%)
no
2 (33.3%)

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Author Topic: Finding queen  (Read 10493 times)

Offline Lone

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Finding queen
« on: April 18, 2012, 09:15:44 am »
I am the worst queen spotter I know.  The newie is marked!

Lone

Offline ShaneJ

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2012, 10:17:27 am »
You'll be right. Just take your time, enjoy the job and don't feel pressured.
Shane

Offline yockey5

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2012, 12:06:24 pm »
She always wears a gold crown on her head and has a long gown. Very easy to see. :-D

Offline rawfind

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2012, 04:16:05 pm »
I am the worst queen spotter I know.  The newie is marked!

Lone

Lone a queen breeder gave me this tip, he said after you check one frame for her dont pull out the next one but the one after that as shes on the move trying to hide from you, tried it and it works fairly often! Neil

Offline Shanevrr

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2012, 10:01:01 pm »
Look for frames were she could be laying with some brood and empty cells normaly in middle 6 frames.  Also do it in middle of day so most bees are out foraging.  Start on your outside frame and work your way in one frame at a time being carefull not to knock off bees and the queen to bottom board.  Inspect both sides twice,  she may run from the sun to other side.  Set inspected frames off to side.  Put back in same order
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Offline Lone

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2012, 10:43:16 pm »
Hello  :oops:

You are all correct. I found the queen then lost her!!!
She was on about the 4th frame I looked at.  Neil, I thought about not inspecting consecutive frames also, and it did make it much faster.  There was a fair gap down the bottom of the frame.  I saw her about 3 times but could not catch her as she would go onto the other side of the frame.  I took the frame a short distance into the shed and started tipping off a few bees at a time into a plastic box as there were many bees on the frame.  I was watching all the time and she was not among these.  I got to the end of the frame and no queen.  This is a hive, mind you, that I smoked very well after I lifted the honey super, and they stung me at once 3 times on the hand holding the smoker.  I wore gloves after that. They were wild.
I didn't know what to do..I looked through the brood frames again and sealed the hive.  All I can think is she escaped somehow into the shed.

I do not want to risk losing the new queen, as good ones are hard to get around here.  So to be certain, I might have to make up a new hive tomorrow with the bought queen.  It doesn't solve the problem of the aggressive hive, though.  I might have to take egg frames from the hive I usually split, because if there is no queen and they requeen themselves from the existing brood, I tell you they will kill me!

This hive has a natural angry roar, and I don't think I can tell the difference between that and a queenless roar.  But I don't think the queen will have got back into the hive...I just wish I knew what happened.

The second mystery is that I found 5 or 6 queen cells, a couple of them capped, but they only contained royal jelly and no larvae.  Does anyone have an explanation for this?

Lone the world's worst queen catcher.

 :'(

Offline Lone

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #6 on: April 18, 2012, 10:47:48 pm »
hey...stop laughing...!

Offline Shanevrr

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #7 on: April 18, 2012, 11:23:31 pm »
swarm cells maybe?  No larva, there kinda hard to see against the royal jelly.  There both white lol
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Offline Lone

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #8 on: April 19, 2012, 12:03:37 am »
There were no solids, even in the fully capped ones.

Offline rawfind

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2012, 04:24:27 pm »
Hello  :oops:

You are all correct. I found the queen then lost her!!!
She was on about the 4th frame I looked at.  Neil, I thought about not inspecting consecutive frames also, and it did make it much fa
I do not want to risk losing the new queen, as good ones are hard to get around here.  So to be certain, I might have to make up a new hive tomorrow with the bought queen.  It doesn't solve the problem of the aggressive hive, though.  I might have to take egg frames from the hive I usually split, because if there is no queen and they requeen themselves from the existing brood, I tell you they will kill me!


 :'(

So lemme get this right you want to requeen but want to make sure old queen is dead?
 Had problem finding the queen once with a really aggressive hive, the solution was to lift everything off the base throw on a queen excluder on the base,  put back  an empty super and one by one shake all the bees off each frame  in front of the hive entrance, carefully checking for the queen, didnt see her but sure enough next day she was under that excluder on the bottom of the base!  I was also told when trying to find her sometimes less smoke is a good idea, good luck Lone, re Neil

Offline Lone

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #10 on: April 20, 2012, 12:41:21 am »
Quote
So lemme get this right you want to requeen but want to make sure old queen is dead?

There is no way the queen could have made it back to the hive as I carried her on the frame into the shed.  But she disappeared into thin air.  So with the tiny weeny chance I am going loopy :) I decided not to risk putting the new queen into this hive.  My beekeeping is like an extreme form of murphy's law, where things go worse than you could ever have imagined.

So we made up a brood box for her with frames from the other hives.  I put brood frames from a hive above the excluder, waited a while till the nurse bees came through the excluder, and shook some other bees from this hive into the new one.  Then we changed places with the old one and new one for a while to add some foragers into the new hive.

To ensure Killer Hive doesn't requeen itself with its offspring, I took out the 2 frames of young brood, and swapped them for 2 frames of eggs from the hive we've made 4 hives from in a year.  I was going to take killer hive to town when it was requeened, but I might have to take a different one now.

Now the only problem seems to be that things are getting out of hand with more and more hives.  We will have to stop at 7!   or 8...

Neil, I billowed the smoke to start with so I could get close enough to the hive to take the frames out, even though I had full armour on, but I didn't smoke the frames when I looked for the queen.  Is this right, or you would avoid smoke altogether?

Lone
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Offline rawfind

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #11 on: April 20, 2012, 03:01:22 am »
Quote
So lemme get this right you want to requeen but want to make sure old queen is dead?

T
To ensure Killer Hive doesn't requeen itself with its offspring, I took out the 2 frames of young brood, and swapped them for 2 frames of eggs from the hive we've made 4 hives from in a year.  I was going to take killer hive to town when it was requeened, but I might have to
Neil, I billowed the smoke to start with so I could get close enough to the hive to take the frames out, even though I had full armour on, but I didn't smoke the frames when I looked for the queen.  Is this right, or you would avoid smoke altogether?

Lone
Following the Murphy's Law principles of Beekeeping




with such a nasty bunch you probably have no option, nasty bees just take all the joy out of beekeeping!

 One thing i have learnt  is if a new colony shows any signs of aggression then its far better to requeen early then to let the clonly get bigger and have twice as many nasty bees to deal with.

The other solution someone gave for real nasty bees .... they rekon a cup of petrol thrown under the lid works well ! i rekons thats like giving up dont you?

Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #12 on: April 21, 2012, 01:29:00 am »
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
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Offline Lone

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #13 on: May 01, 2012, 03:35:10 am »
The new queen's hive had eggs yesterday.   The bee numbers were low so I added two more frames of brood. I actually CAN spot queens where there are not many bees and a big dot on the queen  :)  They should be ready to move to town at the end of the week.

Lone

Offline Birdswood

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #14 on: May 02, 2012, 12:10:06 am »
Lone, if you shine a torch around in the box when you take the lid off, you should see the light glinting off the jewels in her tiara and then you've got her!!!   :-D :-D :-D

Offline Lone

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #15 on: May 04, 2012, 09:23:43 am »
Quote
Lone, if you shine a torch around in the box when you take the lid off, you should see the light glinting off the jewels in her tiara and then you've got her!!!    :-D :-D :-D

Birdswood, I'm not sure we're talking about the same queen here...  they all wear akubras up here in Queensland with corks to keep off the flies..

Lone

Offline Geoff

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #16 on: May 04, 2012, 09:19:59 pm »
Lone you have to go to Mississippi next year and go with the Queen Hunters, Bud, Schawee and JP.  Even if you dont learn anything you will get some laughs. Oh and I forgot hardwood, he'll even find the ones with feathers !!!
« Last Edit: May 05, 2012, 12:08:16 am by Geoff »
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Offline hardwood

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #17 on: May 04, 2012, 10:37:10 pm »
I've gotten pretty good at spotting the queens. They walk around after dark on Duvall street in Key West....easily identified as they're the ones wearing the feather boas!

Scott
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Offline Lone

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #18 on: June 02, 2012, 11:24:48 am »
Hello and thanks for the "useful" tips.  Things got even more bizarre.  After about 26 days I checked the hive hoping they'd whacked up a queen from the better eggs I put in.  But no.  There was capped brood and just a few larvae; no eggs I could see.  And a couple of nearly capped queen cells.  My bee mentor agreed with my mathematics that a new queen wouldn't have capped brood in that time.  He suggested that the queen flew back from the shed and into the hive with some escorts.  And why the queen cells?  It's been too damp to go into the hive again since then.  Is there a detective in the house?  Hercule Geoff?

Thanks in lugubrious anticipation,
Lone 

Offline Geoff

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Re: Finding queen
« Reply #19 on: June 02, 2012, 08:00:03 pm »
   My sister is in London at the moment and she said she saw her on the Thames.  60 years on the throne, time to requeen so we had better talk to Hardwood.
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