combined hive today but ?

[Kathyp]

had a hive that i knew was queenless.  had popped a frame of eggs and stuff in over a  week ago to hold them until i could combine.  did the combine today, but had expected them to make at least an attempt at queen cells.  there were none, but they had tended the brood fine.  thought that was odd?

wondered:  1.  no drones so why bother or 2. failed queen that i missed?

don't really need a solution, but was curious about the findings.

[iddee]

My guess would be there's a queen of some kind in there.

[Kathyp]

that's what i'm afraid of, but i sure couldn't find her and the numbers were not that great.  should have slipped a queen excluder in there with the newspaper, i guess.  i'll be unhappy to have a crappy queen kill my good one  :(

[JP]

Seems you definitely had a queen in there. No roar? Good numbers before the combine or low numbers?


...JP

[Kathyp]

no roar, but kind of nasty pre brood addition.  low numbers.  no sign of eggs, brood, etc.  other hives have lots of brood.  i sure couldn't find her and i'm pretty good at it.  should have been even easier with the numbers low.  maybe she was a skinny one and i just didn't see her.......

i'll have another look tomorrow.  it's supposed to be pretty warm and they probably won't be through the paper if i get at it.

[doak]

Did you use the news paper method?  I'd slip an excluder in just to be on the safe side. give them a top entrance. let them go for a couple weeks and check in. :)doak

[Kathyp]

i did.  i will. i did.   :-D

unfortunately, i worked faster than i processed info.  should have slipped that queen excluder in right away.  if she's skinny or small, it may not matter.  i'll recheck tomorrow.

[Michael Bush]

Even a skinny queen can't squeeze her thorax through an excluder without a lot of determination.  I have found them wedged into an excluder and stuck...

[Kathyp]

thanks guys.  i'll let you know what i find.

the other thing i noticed about this hive last time and today was that they were disorganized.  i'm not sure how to explain that better, but that's the word that comes to mind.  other than the clump of bees tending the small patch of brood i'd given them, they were all over the place.

tomorrow's another day  :-)

[Kathyp]

went through it again.  no queen.  no behavior that would suggest a queen.  i did find an old cell on another frame that looked like the start of a queen cell, but it wasn't on the frame of brood i'd added.  seems odd, but i'll leave them alone and see what happens. 

anyway, thanks again for the input.