5 weeks - time to requeen?

[MikeG]

My second hive is at 5 weeks.  They have only occupied 4 frames.  Everytime I see the queen (which has been weekly), she is just lounging around seemingly in slow motion.  Today, she was just standing on some capped honey all the way at the side of the frame.

The first hive is at 7 weeks and they are exploding, with 8 fully occupied and filled out frames.

I took the first slow hive off sugar syrup 10 days ago so she wouldn't be "sugar-syrup bound".  There are eggs, larva, and capped cells, but not a lot.

Do I need to replace the queen in the second hive? 

[Jerrymac]

So is there room for her to lay? Or are all the cells filled with pollen, honey, brood, eggs?

[Kathyp]

i know this slows down the works, but i think my choice would be to kill her and let them raise their own.  you are south, and should have a much longer season than us ice bound northerners  :-) if you get rain....  i have heard so many stories about the difficulty of requeening and have lost a purchased queen this year myself.

wait for other opinions.  folks with more experience might have a different opinion.

[doak]

Check the brood pattern and make sure she does empty cells in which to lay. If your brood pattern is
skippy. kill her and  let them raise a new one if you don't want to order a new one.
doak

[Brian D. Bray]

If you want to replace the queen I think I would want to obtain one from the genetics of the more productive hive.  Borrow and frame of brood from that hive after you've destroyed the queen you want to replace.  Mark the frame from the other hive and place it in the weaker hive, then remove any queen cells that are not on the barrowed frame.  A queen from a good source are better than 2 of questionable stock.

[Kirk-o]

I'm with Brian use the brood and eggs from the strong hive
kirko

[MikeG]

I decided to give her another week.  (6 weeks old, now)  They are occupying 4 1/2 frames.

Is this the queen's fault or the bees?  She is laying, but she doesn't have a lot of room to lay.  Why wouldn't they have built more foundation by now? 

I put them back on sugar syrup to see if I could stimulate more foundation building, but I'm concerned that they will just fill up available cells with it leaving the queen with even less room.

I shoot starlings off my purple martin houses, but I can't bring myself to kill this queen.  I will do it though, if its necessary.   I'm concerned the entire hive won't make it through the next winter if they don't get going.

[doak]

Every  week you give will be a week lost if she is not doing any better than you say is.
An inferior queen will not become un-inferior.
doak

[Michael Bush]

A  lot of the success of failure of a hive is critical mass.  It takes a lot of bees to raise a lot of bees.  A few bees can only raise a few bees.  Regardless of the queen, they have to hit the point where they have enough bees to rear as much brood as they want before the population explodes.  Sometimes giving them a frame of emerging brood will help where requeening will just set them back some more as they will be queenless for at least a few days.   If you remove the old queen and let them rear a new one they will be without a laying queen for about 24 days.