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Mon, 24 Apr 1995 09:00:21 GMT |
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Dave Johnson wrote:
> A healthy, overwintered colony of midnight (hybrid) bees swarmed on April
> 6th and 9th. A careful inspection on the 9th revealed several empty queen
> cells, a couple maturing queen cells, and some capped brood. An inspection
> today (April 23rd) yielded no brood in any stages of development and all
> queen cells empty.
>
> Has this colony become queenless or is there still time for a virgin to mate
> and lay? Do I need to introduce a young, mated queen to this colony? Or do
> I just need patience?
Almost always this is normal so don't panic. A new queen should
be laying within 21 days of *her* emerging, but until then the
colony can look desolate. Dave Grren's comment about behaviour id
good -- if the the colony is calm then they have a queen.
Multiple empty queen cells suggests that you have lost secondary
swarms as well as the prime swarm. This happens whilst there are
still plenty of bees and multiple queens. The queen you almost
certainly have will probably have emerged after the date you
expect because the first queens that emerged went with the
secondary swarm(s). There's nothing you can do about than now
except wait, however you can plan for the next time it happens.
Probably, you need to know how to make an 'artificial swarm' so
the bees do what you want, not what they want. You can use a
variation on this to recover the situation if you catch the prime
swarm when it first goes.
Never put a new queen into a 'queenless' colony unless you're
_really_ sure they're queenless or you'll waste a queen -- always
test first with frame of brood -- if they draw emergency queen
cells then they really are queenless.
Regards,
--
Gordon Scott [log in to unmask] Compuserve 100332,3310
[log in to unmask]
Basingstoke Beekeeper [log in to unmask]
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