Richard Cryberg writes:

> In my experience queenless bees do not age very fast at all.  I had
> a queenless hive last six months last year.

How interesting!  I'm trying to remember what I've read (mostly right
here on BEE-L) about vitellogenin (?) in winter bees and bee aging.
I had thought that they would wear themselves out foraging, but if
some of them were never nurses, perhaps they have become winter bees
effectively?

> I think your main concern is to keep them from going laying worker
> which in general happens after they have been brood less for about
> a month.

So, about now.

> If they have laying workers introducing a queen is real
> hard because they behave like they already have a queen.  Giving a
> frame of eggs and open brood once a week and carefully removing
> all emergency queen cells can keep them from going laying worker forever.

That's good to know, though I'm nervous about my ability to find and
remove all of the emergency queen cells, which is why I was hoping
that a stick of QMP could stop them from trying to raise a queen.

> I think it is also possible you will have a new queen laying in the
> next few days.  I think based on what you said that is has been
> 28 or 29 days since the split.

I inspected last week-end, at the 28-day mark.

> If so you still have a few days
> left to be positive the hive really is queenless.  Is it possible
> a new queen is laying right now and you missed seeing the eggs?
> That is easy to do.  I have done it more than once.

I can well believe I missed seeing eggs, especially with tons of bees
all over the place, but every frame we pulled out (and we pulled more
than half of them, all the central ones from both brood boxes) were
full of nector or pollen.  If there's a queen in there now, I can't
imagine where she'll find an empty cell to lay in.  :-/

Perhaps I'd better swap in some drawn comb if I can find some, and
find out for sure if there's a queen in there.  I've already ordered
the new queen, and I definitely don't want to waste her.

Thanks for your advice and information!


Anne.
-- 
Ms. Anne Bennett, as a private citizen:  [log in to unmask]
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