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Author Topic: what should I do?  (Read 1818 times)

Offline achunter

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what should I do?
« on: July 30, 2009, 07:40:24 pm »
Okay to keep this short heres what happend, hive was getting extremely strong, split the hive, took the old queen out and put into a new super beside it with 3 other frames of bees. A week later the hive i split swarmed with what queen i have no idea. Caught the swarm put it on the end of the row. So the hive i split and swarmed had 10 queen cells in it all hatched and for some reason on survived. Introduced a bred new world carniolan queen into the hive she came out of the cage about a week ago and no signs of eggs or anything what should i do, i cant find the queen anywhere and she should deff. be laying by now whats up with this hive?

Offline RayMarler

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Re: what should I do?
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2009, 07:50:26 pm »
wait another week then check again for eggs

Offline Scadsobees

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Re: what should I do?
« Reply #2 on: July 31, 2009, 02:27:18 pm »
There is a good chance that the swarm left with a virgin queen, that means that there was at least one queen or queen cell left behind.  When you introduced the new purchased queen, she was probably dispatched by the young (probably virgin) queen that had remained in the hive.  Like Ray said, wait a week or so, there should be a queen laying soon, new queens start laying around 2 weeks after hatching.

Tough situation...virgin queens are very difficult to locate, I wouldn't put a new queen into a hive that had just swarmed.
Rick

Offline sc-bee

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Re: what should I do?
« Reply #3 on: July 31, 2009, 04:54:11 pm »
So the hive i split and swarmed had 10 queen cells in it all hatched and for some reason on survived.

Sounds like the possibility of multiple new queens. A hive will often swarm and then throw after swarms. I had a hive of Russian descendant my first year that threw swarm after swarm. Just the bees I guess.


As said above wait and check for eggs. If the new queen was left and not the purchased queen, the wait may be longer.

Virgin and new queens are hard to spot. Heck, queens are sometimes hard to spot in a populous hive anyway. I have been lucky --- the new queens I find are often in less populous hives. Look for a queen that looks as if she has a huge head and thorax and smaller than usual abdomen for a queen. Mine also seem to look a little runny and unsettled on the comb. But take that for what it is worth, just a personal observation.
John 3:16