April 2019 Introduction: This was one of the first times I thought one of my hives had become queenless but wasn’t. Another time was in the fall, September or October, when I found no brood in a hive. That turned out to be normal behaviour for that time of year. Some queens, depending on genetics, stop laying in the fall as soon as it begins to get cold and the days get shorter. Finding no brood in the middle of May, however, especially when all my other hives were full of brood, seemed like a potentially queenless situation to me. But it wasn’t. A beekeeper causing too much stress and disturbance inside the hive can throw the queen off her rhythm and trigger defensive behaviour in the bees (which was a strong possibility during my first couple years of beekeeping), but in this case I think it was genetics again.
In general, queens with Carniolan and Russian genes seem more sensitive to environmental changes, shutting down early in the fall and starting up quickly in the spring. Italian queens, on the other hand, seem to lay eggs well into the fall but are slow to start up in the spring — which is what I think happened in this case.
The rest of this post has been heavily edited.
I checked one of my hives today for the first time this year and saw no sign of the queen. No worker brood of any kind. Just a lot of empty cells and plenty of honey on the sides. I saw about twenty or thirty open drone brood cells about to be capped and some older capped drone cells, but not much else. No fresh day-old eggs. No sealed worker brood. Nothing. Here’s a quick video of some of the broodless frames I found during the inspection (there’s not much to see):
The bees were not agitated. The buzz from the hive seemed almost too calm during the inspection. The bees did not scent after I removed a box from the hive during the inspection. Usually the box with the queen starts scenting all over the place. At least I think so. But not this time.
Calm bees. No supercedure cells, no swarm cells, no queen cells. My guess is the queen has been dead since I reversed the brood boxes on April 22 and a laying worker is doing a good con job for the time being. The queen is also two years old and may have failed on her own. I checked all the empty cells carefully and saw no sign of fresh eggs, or even older capped brood. The foragers have been working hard like they still have a queen.
I’m not too concerned at the moment because the bees seem to healthy and the population isn’t too low. But they’ll eventually die off without a queen. I either have to requeen the hive or combine it with another hive until I can split it again and requeen.
It was suggested I add a couple of frames of day-old open brood from one of my booming hives. The reason is twofold: 1) The smell of the open brood should suppress any laying workers from squirting out drone brood. 2) If the hive is queenless, the bees will start making queen cells from the open brood.
UPDATE (the next day): I pulled two frames with open brood (1 to 2 days old) from one of my healthy colonies; I checked that the queen wasn’t hitching a ride; I shook off all the bees just to be safe; then I placed the frames in the potentially queenless hive. Now I wait and see if the bees start making a replacement queen from the open brood..
Someone on a beekeeping forum said: “…if there is a laying worker, the bees perceive themselves as being queenright and will kill any foreign queen presented to them. Thus if you attempt to combine them with one of your ‘good hives,’ they may kill one of your real queens.” He goes on to say: “…if you can spare a frame of open brood every week for several weeks, the bees will likely make queen cells. By this point you should be able to introduce a purchased queen. You could remove any queen cells that they’ve made and rather than destroying them you can move them into a new nuc and make another hive.” Well, that’s something to think about.
My sense is that the learning curve for backyard beekeepers in Newfoundland is long and steep — especially in the absence of a mentor. People who read my ramblings should keep in mind that I work without a net. I’ve done my reading and research, but there is no one here to show me how to do any of this. Mud Songs: I make the mistakes so you don’t have to.
UPDATE (5 days later):I finally got around to inspecting the hive again. The bees did not make a replacement queen cell from the introduced open brood. But it doesn’t matter because I spotted the queen today. She is gigantic, just like the queen alien in Aliens. I also saw plenty of fresh brood in the top box. I didn’t bother digging into the bottom box. No need. I did pull a frame of honey, though, and replaced it with some drawn comb near the brood nest — more room for the queen to lay. The bees in this hive have to be the calmest bees I’ve ever seen. They act like I’m not even there. I don’t know if that’s because the queen is old and her pheromones aren’t as strong, or just calm cool genetics at play.
My best guess for the lack of brood: The queen has mostly Italian genes. Italian queens are slow to start laying in the spring compared to Carniolans or Russians that explode as soon as the weather gets even a little warm (they also shut down dramatically when the weather turns cold). I suspect our other three hives have mostly Carniolan genes. All of them are loaded with brood (one hive even has a third brood box). The queen in what I thought was a queenless hive is a light coloured queen, too, which is an Italian trait. So all signs point to an Italian queen. She’s also the only remaining queen from one of my original hives from 2010. She may be slowing down with age.
Phillip, I would do as suggested and put in a frame of brood from another hive. It does work and it would give you a queen hopefully then once established you can remove that frame unless it is currently a frameless frame. Just so you don’t have mixed frames, as long as you remove the nurse bees you will be great I have never tried to leave nurse bees on the frames. I have been told that they would be fine but I always remove them
Good luck and keep us posted
I will add the open brood later today, but even if they make some queen cells, as interested as I am to see that, I’d rather not have the colony lose the time it will take for a new queen to begin laying (our summers are too short, are sunny days too unreliable).
I have two other hives that look like they’re ready to explode any minute. I get the impression each of them could easily use a new brood box, especially one mostly full of empty cells. Unless I’m missing something, I think combining is the best move. Then splitting once I get some replacement queens.
I was reading over my beekeeping journal. I reversed the brood boxes on the foundationless hive on April 22 (about 3 weeks ago). Two days later I noted that there was less activity from the hive compared to the other hives. We weren’t having the greatest weather, so I thought perhaps the colony has shut down a bit. But I’m pretty sure I either killed or severely injured the queen that day.
I think I squashed my queen, too tight, new to the game. Rather than move the hive can I put on a third brood box to Overwinter?
I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking. I’m not sure why you’d move the hive. To combine it with another hive? Here’s a few scenarios:
It’s not uncommon to find a broodless hive by late October (at least in my cold climate). Plenty of queens stop laying in October and don’t start up again until December. No brood in October doesn’t necessarily mean no queen.
A queenless colony is October is doomed (if it really is queenless). Adding brood (a third brood box?) from another colony will only delay the inevitable.
If I had a queenless colony in October and there were enough bees in the hive to make it worth saving, I’d combine the remaining bees with an existing colony or colonies. I haven’t had to do it too often, but the last time I did it, I used the extra bees, along with the honey in the hive, to boost up a small colony that would have otherwise struggled to get through the winter.
If the colony wasn’t worth saving, I’d at least add its honey to the top box of any colony that could use the extra honey going into winter.
Bottom line: If the colony is indeed queenless, the best you can do for the bees this late in the season is combine them with another colony.
Unless you live in some place like Australia where the bees are moving into summer now (May or June for the rest of us). Then go ahead and add open brood and see if the bees make a new queen. I’ve done that several times and it usually works.
I added the open brood frames. I’m not using Rite-Cell foundation anymore, even if it is deeper than regular foundation. It’s white. Trying to spot tiny little eggs through my veil is hard enough. Against a white background doesn’t help.
But anyway, it’s done. I replaced the pulled frames from the healthy hive with empty foundation. There’s brood in the hive, but not as much as I expected, at least not in the top box. Still, no worries.
Now we wait to see if they build some queen cells…
I have been battling this issue, too. I hived a swarm first week in April, and had to cut out some bad comb they were building. I just have chopped or pinched the queen, because two weeks ago I found the same thing you did — no brood and a really chill hive. Not much excitement.
So I robbed open brood from another hive, shook off all the bees and am hoping for the best. On Saturday, I’m doing a full inspection of all my hives (and doing a cut-out in another hive where a second swarm has cross-combed the crap of the frames. Eeesh.) I hope to see queen cells or evidence of emerging queens. If not, I’m going to combine the swarm with another hive.
Good luck to you, and to me!
Good luck with the hive. It’s always tricky trying to work out what they’re up to, but I think you’ve done the right thing.
Phil,
Give them a few days and pull the frame(s) with brood you installed and look at. For the time being if you do see some some queen cells leave them for the time being. As for a laying worker. If you had one already you would be seeing eggs by now. But you may have one just on the horison. Also if you are not working monday stick another frame of eggs/open/capped brood in. You need the smell of the brood to prevent that laying worker from taking hold.
Also, this early in the season I would not worry about recombinding. I would contine to steal a frame of brood from one colony each week until you have a laying queen. Whether they make their own queen or you take one of my grafts. In 3 – 4 weeks you should have a mated queen again. It is still early in the season. By the way, I grafted 12 cells yesteday. I intent to move them into the finisher on Friday so then I will know how successful I was in my grafting.
I checked the brood frames today. No queen cells. 19°C, but I can’t do a full inspection because the wind is too strong today. The bees in that hive are acting funny. We smoke them and they barely react to the smoke. My guess is a laying worker has taken over.
For the record, winds this high are too high for beekeeping:
Westerly wind: 48 km/h
Gusts: 69 km/h
Hey phil, this is a good time for you to know off a few of those drone frames for me while the colony is queenless.
No problem. I’ll pull some frames as soon as I can get at them — probably Monday. Crazy wind today. The frames aren’t exactly drone comb. They just seem to be very well cleaned out empty brood comb. But I’ll get you whatever I’ve got.
We’ve put in a frame of brood and eggs into a queenless hive. Worked for us. This hive is now pretty strong! Glad to find out the hive is queenright.