Queen laying in mini nuc but not laying after introduction to nuc

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Joined
Mar 19, 2009
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Location
North West UK
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
National and 14x12
This happened twice this season after introducing over 40 local mated queens.
Queen was one of my own locally mated in mini nuc and introduced into a 5 frame nuc at the Egg Laying stage- 3 weeks after emergence,
Nuc checked after 1 week no BIAS & queen not seen. Test frame inserted.
Checked 1 week later no BIAS & no queen cells. Queen spotted running on frame then flew off when I pointed her out on video.
So:
1. Can an introduced queen stop laying? Conditions were good with feeder on
2. Are worker police eating her eggs?
3. Did my queen get killed and a virgin flew in?
4. Did I think I saw eggs in mini nuc but was mistaken & queen wasn’t mated? It’s now 5 weeks after emergence so drone layer or just won’t lay eggs? Do some unmated queens not lay eggs?
View attachment My Movie 29.mov
 
It could be the nuc already had a virgin in it. She would kill your introduced mated queen & you saw her when inspecting. The fact she took to the wing is typical of a virgin queen.
I’m coming round to accepting when I make up the nucs as queenless splits of my main colonies some of those main colonies will be superseding so will have 2 queens. Interesting to see if she makes it back to the nuc? If she was in the nuc at the start then she’s been there 2 weeks so should have made some orientation flights.
 
Hi eyeman , I was interested to know why you introduce a newly mated queen at egg laying stage as you call it.
Do you not wait to see capped worker brood and then even what the workers look like? When they emerge ?
I thought a more mature queen after further time would be more likely to be excepted .

It sounds like there was a virgin already in the nuc .
 
Hi eyeman , I was interested to know why you introduce a newly mated queen at egg laying stage as you call it.
Do you not wait to see capped worker brood and then even what the workers look like? When they emerge ?
I thought a more mature queen after further time would be more likely to be excepted .

It sounds like there was a virgin already in the nuc .
Hi
I check all the mini mating nucs 3 weeks after inserting a queen cell. Any with a laying queen she goes into a full sized nuc. The mini mating nucs will then be getting the next round of queen cells so haven’t got the luxury of checking capped brood or workers. Personally not had a problem of getting a queen accepted if only at egg laying stage.
 
Checked the nuc 3 days later and low & behold I found what looks like a completely different queen. Calm & relaxed with a retinue of workers looking after her. Don’t know what happened to that flighty virgin queen!
 

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