colony keeps killing queens- help!

[beekake]

This is a bit of a long story, but an interesting one and a real conundrum for me. I've put a lot of thought into this problem to solve it (O90O), but I'm now stumped!

I had a really strong colony that I used as a queen raising colony in late May. The original queen was placed in another colony while the new queens were being raised.

I wanted to minimise the time taken until a laying queen went back into the colony, so I put in a new marked queen (raised in early May), whoi had just started laying. 10 days later, I discovered she was a drone layer (but a slow laying one...very difficult to find eggs, but when seen they were there, in the bottom of drone cells, one at a time). The bees had spotted she was a bad un and had built several supercedure cells. KNowing she was a DLQ, I took these down.

I tried to find the DLQ several times to no avail over the next few weeks. The drone brood developed and hatched and the bees seemed queenless more or less (although they still kept building charged supercedure cells). Finally, after three weeks and no sign of eggs anywhere, I introduced another marked (this time confirmed good!) queen, with the thought in the back of my mind that maybe the DLQ was lurking there somewhere.

The following week, no sign of the new(er) queen, or brood, eggs, or anything. The bees were irritable and the hive was full of drones. I thought about uniting there and then, but then left it another week, to be sure it was queenless.

On the 24th July (two months after the original queen was removed, and 6 weeks after introducing the DLQ), I checked again. Still queenless, no sign of brood, eggs or anything but, with the fate of the last queen (introduced- killed) in my mind, I didn;t want to unite, so instead I shook the bees out on the basis that any DLW would not be accepted anywhere, and any lurking DLQ would also be refused entry to another hive...what could go wrong? They were mostly drone anyway. The obvious place for them to go was the hive a few m away, which had recently requeened after a swarm and had a new, fully functioning laying queen, and was looking in great shape to overwinter and be a fantastic colony next summer.

Today, 11 days after the original colony's bees were shaken out, I checked the neighbouring hive to see all was well. The queen was gone. No eggs, all brood sealed and with 8 or 9 emergency cells on one frame.

Anyone else had an experience like this? Could the rogue DLQ have survived all this time, got in to the neighbouring hive and killed another queen? If this is a possibility, what should I do? I have a nuc with a lovely queen in, but I don't want to risk losing another queen. I've not read anywhere about trouble with introducing new queens except in the case of DLW, and I can confirm that was never the case here...I have had DLW and I know the signs!

Any advice or thoughts welcome!

 

[oliver90owner]

I see you have repeatedly introduced queens where you strongly suspected a queen to be present. Pure folly. The outcome, if a queen was already present, was predictable.

Your last queen loss clearly occurred around the time of your latest attempt of dispersing your drone laying colony, but the question is one of 'why the emergency cells?'

Emergency cells are the result of the sudden demise of the queen. It may have been connected with your other colony but might (more probably?) be some other accident, like you squashing her at an inspection.

Emergency cells only on one frame appears to indicate she was not laying strongly?
Those emergency cells should emerge in the next day or two, if built on young larvae at her demise.

Seems there might be a possibility of her succumbing to a sudden influx of laying workers but that is a remote guess, I would think. The real outsider is thd drone laying queen gaining entry, killing the incumbent. And then being killed herself (or still there with umpteen emergenc cells, which is very unlikely indeed).

I am not sure why you chose to replace the original queen removed from the hive; a proven laying queen is less risky than an early-season unproven raised queen in the UK.

I expect you missed a tiny 'runtish' queen cell at some point, so are unable to find her. If the original marked queen, your marking technique needs to improve.

Really just guessing at possible scenarios here, to give you a few possibilities to mull over.

 

[Hawklord]

It seems to me that the colony won't accept an introduced queen and wants to raise it's own, so why not let it do that?

 

[beekake]

Just in reply, to clarify and perhaps prompt some further suggestions:

I introduced one queen (rather than a test frame, admittedly) after a couple of inspections when no eggs were seen. So with hindsight, I know this was a mistake, but at the time it was well thought through. Why no test frame? I hear you ask...well, the hive is a modified national in an apiary with two 14 x 12 hives and (at the time) another national that had just swarmed (see later point about original queen not going back) and was therefore without eggs.

The emergency cells in the adjacent hive were not associated with an inspection...the colony had been inspected a couple of weeks earlier and was OK, so we can rule out any clumsiness on my part given that they'd not have been any sealed brood in there had I killed the queen then. The timing of the emergency cells appears totally coincident with the shaking out of the bees from the original hive. I was hoping that someone else on here might have had a similar experience, as unlikely as it may seem.

I can't really say if the queen in the adjacent hive was laying strongly...I had only inspected once (briefly, a couple of weeks earlier, see previous point), to confirm she was laying. The adjacent hive is a 14 x 12, and there were 4 frames with sealed brood on, but only the one with emergency cells. So I would say that she was productive within the bounds of acceptable, not a poor layer.

the original queen, after removing to allow the colony to raise queen cells, was put into another hive which had just swarmed (you know how it has been this year...not always easy to predict) while the oroginal colony was raising queen cells. I figured that it wouldnt really make a difference if, in the original colony, I replaced the original queen or put in a younger one...they would both have to be introduced in the same way since they would both be regarded as 'foreign' after a period of queenlessness. Next year, I will use a Cloake board or similar to avoid removing the queen from my raising colony. Far too much trouble in this case, and no desire to repeat.

Maybe I did miss a runtish queen, but I don;t know how. The raising colony was hopelessly queenless (hence they were a raising colony), and a single well marked non-runtish queen was introduced and was revealed to be a drone layer in time. I see that others have had issues with marking with green paint this year, so I don;t rule out that she became 'naked' again (OK, unmarked). I inspected several times and took time to look for a queen on every frame (including using the 'book' method).

And yes, Hawklord, maybe the colony did just want to raise its own queen, but after all that time being queenless or with DLQ, I was worried about DLWs and anxious to get a laying queen in there as soon as possible.

Any thoughts welcome.

 

[Hawklord]

The first mistake was not using a test frame. Was the first queen introduced marked, I have queens that were marked at beginning of June and the colour is still very clear. When I do a shake out I do it over a few days. First day move hive, this gets rid of foragers. Second day shake 2 frames and move hive. I carry on until hive is empty.