There has been a lot of postings this season regarding poor queen quality,
with that in mind I feel I should share my experience with one hive this
year, it might be some help.
        Early season I decided to make some increase in our production yard,
we had a very serious winter and had lost some hives. So I made up a series
of 4 frame nucs in our breeding yard, placed a queen cell in each as usual.
I waited the necessary time till egg laying. The nucs were moved to our out
yard and this is where the fun starts.
        On checking 3 days later,one hive, no eggs, no queen. So without
thinking I added a mated queen in a cage in the usual way, thinking that
perhaps she was lost on the move, 24 hrs later queen was released. I then
checked 7 days later, no eggs, no queen and here is the serious point, the
previous queen was a drone layer! Now I have a quandary, what to do? I
elected to unite another nuc using the newspaper method! A few days later no
queen, and they had taken the incoming queen's eggs and were making cells.
        By now I'm totally fed up with it, said "to hell with them, get on
with it"! The cell emerged and it was a good sized queen but of unknown
pedigree, but on examination the queen was damaged, but was laying a good
pattern. For wings all she had were the stiff leading edges, all the
trailing edge was gone, at the time I said to my wife I wonder if they will
kill her? Sure enough a few days later, no queen, no eggs.
Now we are waiting to see if another queen has been accepted and is laying.
        What is to be learned from this? Well, in the first place I should
have noted the drone layer, and given them a virgin. That would be the
natural thing, they were waiting for a virgin to emerge from a cell they had
made. Or a lure of Bee Boost which would have convinced them they had a good
queen. (That's another story) Or as a third, a frame of eggs from a viable
queen which would have produced a queen but of unknown pedigree, which is
where we almost ended up!!!
        So here we are some 3 moths later still undecided as to where this
hive is, doubtful if we can get it through the winter, all because of a
poorly mated queen. All I can say is I'm glad I got it and not a customer!!!
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   * David Eyre          9 Progress Drive, Unit 2,  *
   * The Beeworks,    Orillia, Ontario, L3V 6H1. *
   * [log in to unmask]      705-326-7171 *
   * http://www.muskoka.net/~beeworks           *
   *  Agents for: E H Thorne &  B J Sherriff UK. *
   ****************************************************