Re: 1st year questions

Tim,

Thank for responding.  My situation is one of having no brood what so
ever and then having (a couple weeks later) capped drones only.  In
fact, I thought the second hive had successfully requeened as I saw
eggs and uncapped brood and then they capped them - bulging drone
cells every last one of them.

Thanks for your input.  I appreciate it.

Eric

On 21 Nov 2003 19:08:43 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tim Arheit) wrote:

>On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 11:24:32 -0500, Eric Deaver
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>The first batch of swarms were definitely confirmed with 6-8 empty
>>cups and missing marked queens in all three hives.  The laying worker
>>was diagnosed by the random pattern of just drone cells - no worker
>>brood.  We actually saw the virgin queen on this hive but she never
>>took for some reason - I'm assuming lost on mating flight.
>>
>>The second swarm (of the two remaining hives - in October) was
>>confirmed again by missing marked queens (we remarked all the queens
>>after the first swarm) and the presence of empty queen cups in the
>>hive that successfully requeened.  None in the one that did not
>>requeen.  I suppose something elso could have killed the queen (I did
>>find a bunch of dead bees in front of this hive around this time) but
>>I still ended up with the same brood pattern (only drone cells and
>>random pattern) to indicate a laying worker and no queen.
>
>Just because a hive has only drone brood doesn't mean a hive has
>laying worker.  Especially if the drone brood is capped.     This
>condition can happen when the queen stops laying (superceedure, swarm,
>poor weather, or simply low on resources).  Since drones take longer
>to hatch than workers there will be a period when you only have sealed
>drone brood.    The true laying worker colonies I've seen have had
>good amounts of drone brood in all stages of development.
>
>It's often surprised me how irregular the timing can be when dealing
>with queens.  I've had purchased queens take 2 weeks before they start
>laying again.  I've inspected hives and marked them to get a new queen
>when they came in later that week convinced they were hopelessly
>queenless,   (no brood of any sort, no queen cells, etc.).  Yet when I
>went to requeen them the queen (old queen, not a new one or a virgin)
>was laying as usual.  (I suspect the 3 week dirth and period of
>intense robbing had a great deal do to with that).
>
>I have had (as well as others in my area) a great deal of problems
>with queens this year.  Likely it's due to the stress of our past
>winter, and the generally poor conditions for honey (too much rain).
>
>It does have me a bit concerned.  The hives typically look better
>going into winter.  They don't have nearly as many young bees because
>of the derth we had in September.  I've never seen my Italians shut
>down brood rearing so much except for winter.  It's also the first
>year I've had to feed going into winter.
>
>-Tim