Queenless, eggless, cupless, clueless... oh, and 14x12 issues... :-)

Hi all,

I have a colony on national brood and a half that is currently Queen-less (and eggless), they had a number of emergency queen cups which were damaged when I took the super frames out for inspection - the damn things had a small amount of brace comb down to the deep frames which tore the queen cells apart as I removed them - really annoying!

There is still a fair bit of sealed brood so the old queen can't be too long gone - the colony is really strong, bees are covering everything and storing plenty of nectar in the super I have on.

I've managed to source a mated queen from a reliable source so will be introducing her tomorrow hopefully but given that this is my only hive (out of 8) which is not on 14x12 I wondered if the following sounded feasible...

Place a 14x12 brood box with the new queen in and undrawn frames at the bottom of the stack, then put a queen excluder above that, then the existing brood and a half with sealed brood, then the super.

Is that going to work or am I asking a bit much expecting them to take to a new queen AND draw out loads of comb for her?

I really found the migration of my other hives to 14x12 a real pain so wanted to take the opportunity to do it sooner rather than later - this also feels a bit less aggressive than a shook swarm approach.

Does anyone have any thoughts? I'm happing to introduce her into the brood and a half if that is going to be best - but only if there is going to be a definite advantage of doing so.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

James

Do all the frames contain brood? I presume it is currently brood and a half?

If there are any frames containing only drawn comb replace with 14x12 now slowly moving the national and super frames to the out side edges?

Or you could introduce into a 14x12 nuc? Combing when the the national frames are empty. Making up the hive with foundation or drawn comb?

Personally I would give them one thing to worry about at a time. Introduce the new queen now and once she has settled in and is laying, demeree the hive using the 14x12.

14x12 with new frames at the bottom. Put the queen in with a frame containing unsealed brood. QE on top of that, then the super, then a demeree board, then the old brood n half above that with its own entrance. Knock down the queen cells in the brood n half after 5-6 days and then check again after another couple of days just to be sure.

Put new queen in brood box and confine her there by placing a queen excluder on top, and then the super on top of that - assuming there is brood in the super, that is. Stick 14x12 on top of all that and feed. When brood has emerged from super, place on top of hive, clear bees from it, and remove from hive completely. At the same time as you move the super to the top of the hive, take out queen excluder so that queen has access to 14x12. When bees have taken possession of 14x12, stick brood on top.

Midland Beek said:

Put new queen in brood box and confine her there by placing a queen excluder on top, and then the super on top of that - assuming there is brood in the super, that is. Stick 14x12 on top of all that and feed. When brood has emerged from super, place on top of hive, clear bees from it, and remove from hive completely. At the same time as you move the super to the top of the hive, take out queen excluder so that queen has access to 14x12. When bees have taken possession of 14x12, stick brood on top.

Click to expand...

Thanks Midland Beek - this approach seems like a really good compromise... the whole trouble with the brood and a half is the added stress of tooling around with 2 separate boxes that the queen could be roaming around in. Using this approach the queen is always confined to a single box with the QE yet has not been separated from the rest of the colony in a drastic way.

The queen arrives this morning - I'm definitely going to do this approach, I'll let you know how I get on later...

Thank you!

Ok - new queen is now hanging between a couple of frames of brood ready for me to remove the candy plug tomorrow to let them start eating their way to each other.

Things could have gone a lot smoother - there was some drone brood cells and I did spot a few grains of rice (I didn't recognise them from before but there was only a handful so I could be wrong). I'm now not sure if...

1. There is a laying worker - no sign of multiple eggs in a cell though, and really wasn't many.
2. They were there before and I just didn't spot.
3. The queen IS present (or a fresh queen has just started laying) and I just didn't spot anything before.

I'm assuming 2. so will continue with the introduction - if it's 3, then at least I still have a queen right colony (although it means I'm likely to have lost a few quid on my queen. Option 1. and a dead queen would be a bit of a bummer!

Hi
Its unusual for workers to start laying before all the brood has emerged.
A test frame which some eggs/young larvae would have given you an indication whether there was a new queen in the hive.
Alec

Don't release the new queen before going through them again. Your new queen will be killed and a waste of money. You must find the old one.
She will probably be hanging around your new queens cage.

Good luck

Pete D said:

Don't release the new queen before going through them again. Your new queen will be killed and a waste of money. You must find the old one.
She will probably be hanging around your new queens cage.

Good luck

Click to expand...

Hi Pete, hope your bees are going well. I was just about to give you a call when my neighbour phoned to say that there is a colony setting up shop in his garden - I guess this explains where my queen has gone

I'm going to be finishing work early to collect, another first for me, this year is turning out to be a real trial-by-fire kind of year.

James