Bad queen?

[Shanevrr]

I have one hive that has questionable.  A lot less brood than other 3 hives and very spotty.  There is not one full frame of brood anywere and eggs are skattered about between lower box and upper box here and there.

Should i get a queen on the way and replace her?  Or you think it will get better

[Kathyp]

how old is the queen?  when did you set up the hive?

[Shanevrr]

not sure about queen, she came with package.  hive is about 6 weeks old

[iddee]

Time to pack her suitcase.

[Gloria]

how many years did queen live ???

[BjornBee]

Installed package 6 weeks ago and you got an upper box and a lower box.  :?

Was this a dead-out hive? Or did you start this package out on foundation?

Since packages decline in numbers for the first 30 days or so, you either started with a very huge package, or a very small box.

If it was old comb (dead-out), and she is laying where she could based on cleaned out cells and the bees dealing with old pollen and other chores in getting this hive properly situated, then yes, you may see a pattern not so nice

I think there may be more to the story. Before you chop any queens head off, based on advice in response to your limited information given, I think I would hold on a bit. Something don't add up.

[T Beek]

I'm dealing w/ similar circumstances, although its only three weeks since hiving two packages (which have become drone machines) and dealing with a bear attack on my only survivor colony. 

The advise all around 'seems' to be....hold on a bit more when dealing with packages.  That said, six weeks 'is' a bit long to be waiting for a package to perform, so I guess that has me leaning toward the 'replace queen' crowd.  Good Luck.

thomas

[Shanevrr]

they built comb fast as I fed a lot and they took a lot.  Yes they were 4 lb packages thus why the build up so fast.  I am compairing to my other 3 hives which are doing great so its obvious the 4th is weeker.

But i did do this.  I switched places of the weaker hive with a strong one about 3 weeks ago, to fool the bees in the weaker hive and it worked.  But now stronger hive is the weaker hive,  it did have lots of brood and now has very little but with same queen.  weird, i thought switching them would help weak hive and strong hive would remine strong because of all the new brood and eggs 

maybe this helps

[VolunteerK9]

But now stronger hive is the weaker hive, 

Which is exactly why I wouldnt do this with packages and no other hives to pull from. It takes 3 weeks for worker brood to hatch-and in the meantime your package population is continously dying off. A 6 week old package doesnt have the resources to pull from to aid another one out. I would cut my losses now and combine. Even if you got a new queen within a week, your still looking at another roughly 30 days for her brood to emerge.