I have a hopelessly queenless hive (which became queenless through
an error of mine about four weeks ago, which I fully realized only a
few days ago), which I'd like to "keep alive", insofar as possible,
until a new queen arrives from my preferred local breeder, in three weeks.

I'm wondering about the effectiveness of a QMP stick to (a) prevent
laying workers (so far I see no signs of brood at all), and (b)
to prevent the bees from trying to make a queen, if were to insert
a frame or two of brood to keep the population level up while I
wait for the new queen to arrive.

Google didn't reveal much, and in the BEE-L archive I found one
thread dated 1996, with a message to the effect that Bee Boost or
Fruit Boost "was able to significantly decrease the initiation of
queen rearing in queenless colonies".

As a backyard beekeeper, I can afford to be a bit sentimental about
my bees, and these hardworking little beings are collecting tons
of honey, but we're about to head into a dearth, and the remaining
(all-adult) population, which is numerous right now, is about to
start aging out.  I'd like to keep this colony alive, and protect
it from robbing, until I can re-queen it.

I have a source of frames of brood from my neighbour (whose hive now
contains "my" queen because of my splitting error), which I'll need
to tap when the new queen arrives, to make sure I have nurses for the
eggs she will lay.  I'm concerned that I may have trouble getting a
queen accepted (per Sammataro & Avitabile 4th ed., chapter "Special
management problems", section "Laying workers"), so my vague plan
is to use some "borrowed" frames of brood to make a small nuc to get
the queen accepted, then to unite this nuc with my queenless colony,
possibly using the newspaper method, as soon as the new queen is laying.

Meanwhile, within the next two weeks, I plan to pull off most of
that honey, reduce the hive entrance, and pre-emptively put up a
robbing screen.  I'm trying to figure out if/when I should add
some brood to keep the population to a viable level (to defend
the hive), and if I do, how to make sure that the bees don't try
to make a queen, since that would prevent acceptance of the fancy
new expensive queen.  And whether I add brood frames or not, I'd
like to reduce the chances/amount of laying workers, since I read
that they make it more difficult to put in a new queen.

BTW, I'd prefer not to try again to have my bees make a queen: I
don't think there are many hives around here, and I'm not confident
that a homegrown queen would be well-mated.  The queen I just lost
was of excellent quality - I got her in June 2016, and she's still
laying like mad next door.

So, even though all you commercial guys probably think I'm crazy to
try to protect/save this dying hive, can you share with me your
experience, if any, with QMP sticks to prevent laying workers and to
prevent queen rearing?


Anne, backyard beekeeper, Montreal.

P.S., in my defense, although I feel dumb for accidentally giving my
queen away in a split, I did check a week later, and found a dozen
emergency queen cells, so I assumed that things were probably going to
be okay.  Unfortunately at the four-week mark, no eggs nor brood of
any kind, and all those emergency queen cells have been completely
removed!  I suspect that I had left no young enough larvae, and the
attempt to make a queen failed.  So many lessons learned!  To wit:

  - Keep up with ABJ; if I'd read Z. Lamas's article in the April ABJ
    when it came out, I'd have used his "Doolittle method of making
    nucleus colonies", and avoided losing my queen in the split.
  - When splitting, make sure to have eggs in both halves, in case
    something goes wrong with the queen.
  - Don't assume that emergency queen rearing attempts will be
    successful.

Sigh.  Live and learn.

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