You open your hive but you can’t find your queen. Worse, you see no young brood—no larvae, no eggs. Several things are possible:
- Your queen is dead.
- Your queen is failing and is being superseded.
- Your queen has swarmed.
- You have a queen that hasn’t started laying.
- You have a virgin queen.
What should you do?
At this point, you wonder what to do. You could buy a queen, but maybe you have a virgin queen or a newly mated queen and you just didn’t see her. Or maybe you can’t find her because she’s out on a mating flight this very minute. You hate the idea of adding a new queen, only to have them duke it out later. So what do you do?
The very best and least risky thing you can do is add a frame or two of mixed brood from another hive. By mixed brood, I mean brood in various stages of development from eggs to larvae to capped pupae. Here’s why:
- A good supply of eggs and recently hatched larvae means the colony can raise a queen on their own if they need one. And if they don’t need one, no harm is done.
- Brood, especially larvae, give off pheromones that reduce the likelihood of laying workers even if no queen is present.
- If a queen needs to be raised, the capped brood and older larvae will supply the colony with new workers in the meantime.
The transfer of brood
As you can see, the colony—whether queenless or not—has everything to gain and nothing to lose with an infusion of brood. But what about the hive you stole from? Are you running a risk of weakening that colony?
A little judgment is useful when stealing brood. If you steal it from a populous and thriving hive, it won’t make any difference as long as you don’t accidentally take the queen. Shake all the bees from the frames you take to make sure you don’t have her.
If the hive you steal from is of only moderate strength, take frames that contain mostly eggs. The reason is that the donor colony hasn’t spent a lot of time, energy, or resources on a frame of eggs and it won’t take long for the colony to replace it. Larvae and capped brood, on the other hand, have taken a great deal of effort. So, if you are at all concerned about the strength of the donor colony, stick to stealing eggs—it’s like taking pennies instead of dollars.
The value of more than one colony
The beauty of this system is that you don’t have to know whether you have a queen or not, or whether she’s a virgin or not. If they need a queen they can raise one. And if they don’t, you’ve done no harm.
A final thought: whenever I write something like this I realize there are beekeepers with only one hive. I can’t think of anything trickier. If you have only one hive—or if you haven’t yet started beekeeping—consider getting a second colony. It doesn’t just double your options; it multiplies them many times over.
Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite
The queen can quickly replace lost eggs. Flickr photo by steveburt1947.
Wow! This is exactly what we did last week with one of my friend’s hives that was packed with honey but had no brood. He re-queened because the hive had a mean attitude. Guess they liked their mean queen and didn’t like the nice new one.
But my question is, if I’m checking hives and see the queen, could I mark her? What’s the stuff you use, and how can I keep from doing her or the bees any harm? It would save so much anxiety. Thanks.
Nan
Please see “How to mark a queen“.
RUSTY! You seem to know when I experience a queen loss. Thanks for the Great advice!
The only time this doesn’t work is when you transfer the frame over, they produce a new queen and then it rains for three weeks solid. Your lovely new queen can’t get out to mate and becomes a drone layer. You bump her off and try again with another frame, but by this time your hive population has shrunk, you have few nurse bees and the weather’s still wet and cold, so they can’t keep the brood warm enough and the queen cells they produce never hatch out.
Eventually you end up combining your weak queenless hive with the stronger one. Happened to us in London this year; we’ve had the most unbelievably ridiculous weather, including the rainiest April since records began. Even now it’s June the rain and winds aren’t over. In hindsight we’d have been better off buying in a mated queen—but we didn’t know the summer was going to be this useless!
Another reason for no eggs—at least here in the UK—is that you have just put in a treatment for varroa. When I had my first bees and treated as dealer recommended I was quite nonplussed by this. Established beekeepers will know but new ones reading may not. Of course the beauty of your advice (frame of eggs from elsewhere) is that it does no harm, but the new beekeeper may be the one who only has one hive. Great post as usual.
Good point. I hadn’t thought of that possibility.
The new beekeeper is exactly the one who should not have just one hive.
I treated for varroa (Formic Pro) I treated with one sleeve for 10 days. I didn’t find the queen, but there was a lot of brood (lovely pattern) and lots of larvae. I have not seen any eggs, larvae since the second treatment. The bees seem calm. Is it just the time of year or do I need to worry about losing my queen? She was a great queen.
Stacy,
It could be just the time of year, but I like to find my queens after a Formic Pro treatment. If you treat earlier, say in August, you have more time to replace a queen should she die from the treatment.
Good article Rusty! I sent your link to our beginner beeks to absorb.
Thanks so much, Charlie!
So, can I mark my queen?
Hey Rusty, please help me with this problem.
1 ) I have inspected my three bees and i have seen that one of them is full with honey and there is no place for the queen to lay eggs ? ( What should i do ? )
2 ) One of them is not eating sugar syrup like others? And i have not seen the queen there ? Is there any problem ? What should i Do?
3 ) Someone told me that it is not OK to feed my bees with Sugar syrup every Day with a mixture 2:1. ( is that correct ? )
Thanks, i hope you will help me soon so it will not be too late.
With regards Dardan 🙂
Darden,
1. I don’t know where you are writing from, but if you are going into winter don’t worry about having no room. The queen won’t be laying any eggs for awhile and, by the time she is ready, many cells will be empty.
2. Sometimes real small colonies don’t take the sugar. Check the size; if is real small, combine it with another hive.
3. You can feed 2:1 syrup until they stop taking it. They will stop taking it when it gets colder.
Hello Rusty,
I spend a lot of time flipping through your site and appreciate it so much. As a new beekeeper, I find the information very valuable.
We have 2 hives and are going into a South Ontario winter. The one hive seems to being doing well and the second one has been a wealth of learning. The first queen was unmated. Replaced her and all seemed well until about 3 weeks ago. We noticed a significant amount of drone and very little worker brood. I was concerned so asked a much more experienced keeper to come and look. He agreed that we needed a new queen but told us to wait until next spring. (It was a rainy cool spring here so apparently many queens were poorly mated.) Against my gut feeling we chose to accept this advice.
Yesterday I was out and now I am thinking the hive is toast! So many dead bees. When I smoked, several wasps and lady bugs came out. Most of the syrup is gone but the hive is lighter (robbing must be going on). Many of those drone have emerged and there are very few workers. Some dead brood (perhaps chilled because of the cool nights and not enough workers to keep them warm???). Oh my gosh!
So the question is —do I just let it go and start again next spring a little wiser? Do I try to re-queen now even though there is much doubt they could get in enough stored for the winter? Try and save what I can and add the two hives together if possible (I certainly don’t want all that drone and it may be very difficult to get the rest of the wasps out and I think the brood is dead.) I am feeling a bit overwhelmed!
Any input would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Sharon
Sharon,
Okay, where to begin? First piece of advice: always follow your gut. You know your bees better than anyone else. Plus, you know more about beekeeping than you are giving yourself credit for, so next time, run with it.
I can’t imagine why anyone would tell you to hang on to a queen that is laying drones but few workers. I wonder where he thought replacement brood was going to come from throughout the winter months? Or the early spring? It mystifies me.
I agree that the hive is toast. Yellowjackets walking out of a hive is never a good sign, and a hive getting lighter instead of heavier . . . well, you know.
With so little population, and so few stores, it is unlikely a new queen could pull it out now. There just aren’t the workers needed to keep things warm, let alone raise brood. If you want to try to save the workers, you could combine with the help of a queen excluder to delete the drones. But if the hive is full of yellow jackets, I wouldn’t do that either. Although it is sad, it may be best to just let it go.
Thank you Rusty. Hopefully i need never repeat the mistakes I’ve made this first year!
I inspected my three hives two days ago. I found that one was doing very well, one was doing fairly well, and one was not doing well at all. The latter had lots of empty cells, no larvae, no capped brood, no sign of a queen, and one supersedure cell. I hope I have identified why my bees have been very aggressive in my backyard – i.e. the one hive is queenless.
In a similar situation last year I ordered a new queen. I decided not to do that this time. I hope that the one supersedure cell will indeed work. However, just in case, I went to the very good hive and removed one frame of eggs, larva and capped brood, plus some honey. I inserted it into the weak hive. This evening I logged onto your site to see if you had posted anything about this sort of thing. I am gratified to see that I happened upon something that you recommend. Makes me feel a little bit better. Now I wait, with fingers crossed.
Michael,
I use this technique often, and it usually works. Once in a while, if a colony is too weak, they will fail to raise a queen . . . but that is the exception. Let me know if they succeed.
Hi, Rusty–
First year beek here, have 2 hives which have been teaching me so much! Namely: that I have so much to learn.
A colony that I started w/ a nuc appears to be queenless. They’d been showing signs of requeening for the last 2 inspections–queen cups, queen cells. I’d been told by a more experienced beekeeper to destroy the queen cells to delay the swarming process and to create more space in the hive, which i did. 2 inspections/weeks ago, I destroyed queen cups & replaced a frame that was full of honey and nectar with one that was empty. 1 inspection/week ago, i destroyed queen cups and cells and added a medium (above the two deeps). in both of these inspections, there were eggs & larvae, capped brood (just a few drone cells), ample nectar, honey & pollen.
this morning, ample honey, nectar, pollen, but very, very little capped brood, no open brood, no eggs that i saw. and several queen cells, most of which were ready to go. i’d been told to destroy them, so i started doing so, but then stopped b/c i realized that… these looked like supercedure cells and i hadn’t seen any new eggs or brood. dammit. only 2 queen cells were left intact. i didn’t see any further eggs, so i’m afraid it comes down to these two as-yet-unhatched queens.
so my questions:
1. how badly have i effed up this colony?
2. if i move a frame of brood over from an adjacent hive, does the colony stand a chance of requeening itself? or should i order a new queen?
3. if i add a new medium atop the deeps and keep the queen excluder ABOVE it/below the honey super that’s already been started, will that help? or should i move the medium i’d started as a honey super down, put the queen excluder above it, and set the new medium up top and use that as the super? or should i just aim to keep the brood to 2 deeps like so many people do?
4. is there a reason, besides the neighbors, to prevent swarming? my hives are being hosted by someone in an urban area; we have been sharing honey with her neighbors, but they’re still not eager to experience swarms, so i’ve been trying to prevent them by destroying queen cells/cups and adding space frame-by-frame, and now by adding mediums.
5. i don’t have the space to split them and start new hives and so i feel a little limited in my options. should i just keep opening up vertical space?
thanks very much for any advice!
Michele,
If they can’t get a queen from one of the two cells, give them a frame of eggs and young larvae. They may succeed in making a queen. Moving all the mediums and deeps up and down isn’t going to affect queen replacement one way or the other. Besides harassing the neighbors, if you lose a swarm you may lose a season of honey production from that hive. I don’t know where you live, but for much of temperate North America, swarm season is pretty much over. At this point, worry more about the health of your queen and colony and less about swarming.
thanks, rusty! i was kind of freaked out on friday, but read a lot (so much great help on your site– really, thank you), talked to some more experienced beekeepers on fb & by phone, got some sleep, and then, when i was back with the hives on saturday, took my time observing and decided to do the following:
– move a frame of brood from hive 1 to hive 2 (hive 1 was started from a package this year and hive 2 from a nuc; hive 1 has typically been following a week or two behind in terms of population and frame-filling etc. they’ve been getting more congested in there, so moving brood from 1 to 2 served two purposes: helping out hive 2 by providing SOME eggs/larvae, and helping out hive 1 by relieving some congestion). i know there isn’t full agreement on the best way to import brood from one colony to another, but i decided to import brood only, no adult bees. i also know that many people suggest importing capped brood only, b/c eggs & larvae take much more work to raise, but while i was standing over hive 1 and deciding which brood frame to use as the donor frame, i chose a frame that had only slightly more capped brood than larvae and eggs b/c i wasn’t sure how long it would take to have a new queen laying in there, and i wanted to sort of help out the population a little more broadly. also, b/c the population in hive 2 is still fairly strong (for now), i figured (hoped) that they still had enough number/strength to nurse eggs & larvae. these are guesses i’ll have to follow up on in upcoming weeks (please let me know your thoughts if you’d like, though!).
– hold off on adding another medium to either hive. standing there, i realized they didn’t really need me to do this yet. population in hive 2 is going to take a serious dip in population b/c they’ve been queenless long enough to have 0 eggs/larvae/capped brood for a spell, so congestion is going to drop, and moving brood from hive 1 will help the congestion in that hive, too. and both colonies are still building out the frames in the first medium supers i put up there two weeks ago– they look busy enough using the space that they have. and you’re right– we’re past the time of peak swarming… i’d seen queen cells developing and assumed the bees were making them b/c they wanted to swarm, but i guess they were actually just trying to replace the queen (novice me, i thought they were swarm cells b/c of their location. i didn’t know until this past weekend that sometimes supercedure cells can show up at the edges of frames, too. I’d also seen plenty of larvae at last inspection– I should have been paying more attention to the egg situation as well.).
– requeen. i considered waiting for hive 2 to create a new queen from the larvae in the newly imported brood frame (they may be doing this right this second), but i was also a little concerned about the timeframes involved. on the advice of one of the veterans in my beekeeping group, i decided to order a new queen — expense be damned (ugh. shipping is, like, double the cost of the bee!) — to improve the chances that the colony would be able to rebuild its numbers more quickly. i was concerned about the period of time it would take hive 2 to create a new queen, the odds of a viable one emerging, the odds of that viable queen surviving and returning safely from her mating flight, etc and how long all that might take. the friend who advised me was probably speaking from the perspective of keeping honey harvest up (he makes his living off his bees’ honey); honey harvest is not my priority (this is a learning year for me, and my #1 goal is learning to care for these two colonies & see if i can help them keep themselves alive through a full year), but given the expected population dip and the fact that it’s nearly august, i was concerned about whether they’d have enough bees making enough food to make it through winter. so i just ordered from olivarez this morning and will hopefully be able to install a new, mated queen tomorrow or wednesday, 5 days after discovering the absence of eggs & larvae in that hive.
– prioritize brood, but also keep the honey stores in mind– i think i made a rookie error a few weeks ago when i first discovered all those queen cups & cells. i really thought they were getting ready to swarm b/c the brood nest was becoming honey-bound, so one of the things i did was to remove a honey frame and give them a fresh, empty frame in its place. i gave the honey frame to my bee host for her to enjoy with her family and neighbors. i felt really badly about taking food stores from the brood area (i know you’re not supposed to! i know the honey in the brood area is very, very specifically *theirs*!), but i didn’t know what else to do– i felt it was imperative to make room, and i didn’t think it wise to just hold the frame in a box in the basement (it was about 35-40% uncapped- was concerned about the nectar/uncured honey). it didn’t occur to me– until i was reading more this weekend– that i could remove honey frames and just freeze them for re-installation come fall! durrr! anyway, cleared out a freezer in one of my classroom fridges and have put the last frame i pulled in there, wrapped in plastic wrap. i’ll return it to them at the end of the season, and have told my host not to expect anymore honey apart from what ends up in the supers (she seems amenable).
whenever my new queen gets here (tomorrow? wednesday?), i’ll install her & keep my fingers crossed that she’s accepted & is able to begin laying shortly. all i want is for the colony to be in good shape for fall & winter.
thanks for all your insight and advice– i’ve appreciated your responses to my questions on here, but i also appreciate all i’ve learned from your general posts and your responses to others’ questions as well!
Hi Rusty,
The weather here in the Mid Atlantic finally cooperated and allowed me to do a full inspection of my 4 hives. All but one are doing great. I bought a nuc of Carni’s last summer, and they struggled to build up in number and in honey stores. I fed them all winter because I knew they probably didn’t have adequate honey to make it through without starving.
Yesterday, my worst fears were confirmed. Thousands of dead bees in the hive. Many dead bees with tail ends sticking out of the combs that obviously starved. No eggs, no brood. Although there were still bees that were alive, their numbers were low. Clearly, the hive was queenless.
Today, I was in the yard a good distance from the hives and a very angry bee was giving me the business. I left the area puzzled as to why a bee would be buzzing me that far from the apiary. A while later, this time very close to the apiary, a group of at least 5 bees started buzzing me, chasing me around the yard. I finally got into the house with only one sting on the neck.
I am assuming the aggressive bees are from the queenless hive, and were probably further agitated by my being in their business yesterday. I put a frame of eggs and brood from another hive into the Carni hive in hopes that they’ll raise a queen. My concern, and question for you, is given the aggressiveness of these ladies, and the fact that I’m in a suburban neighborhood and I have 3 little girls, do you think it best for me to try to get a queen to expedite the process, or do you think that the bees will settle down now that they have brood?
Thanks for your time and expertise!!
Cherie Roberts
MIllersville, MD
Cherie,
A number of things could have stirred them up, including queenlessness, inspection, and perhaps even noise. I would wait a few days to see if they calm down with the introduction of brood. I find that some colonies are skittish for awhile and then calm down again. If it doesn’t get better within 4 or 5 days, you could consider requeening.
Hello Rusty, I have a hi’ve with a goodish number of bees, no honey stores, two and a half frames of brood and a queen in her second (poor) season. It is late July here in the Czech Republic, honey harvested is over. Should I buy in a new queen, move some brood (isn’t it too late in the year) or just feed sugar hope for some Autumn honey stores and see if they make it through the five months of winter?
Alan,
My choice would be to replace the queen, if possible, and then feed like crazy. If the queen hasn’t been performing well, she certainly won’t improve, so I would do that first. If you can spare a frame or two of brood from elsewhere, that would give the colony more foragers to start collecting anything they can find in the field and more house bees to store the sugar syrup.
Rusty, I’d like to thank you profusely for all the information you’ve compiled on this website. This is my first year beekeeping, and you have been absolutely instrumental in my desperate attempts to remain somewhere on the steep learning curve associated with these fantastic little busybodies! In fact, as late as this spring, I hadn’t even considered raising bees before. It just doesn’t seem to be something that’s really done (on a small scale) in my particular part of Alberta. I stumbled upon Honey Bee Suite, and a couple weeks later found myself picking up my first of two nucs.
I do have a question for you though. My bees got way ahead of me this year – prime nectar gathering time is also prime haying time – and I ended up with a honey bound hive that issued a swarm in late August. The day they swarmed I did a hive inspection, and found three swarm cells. I put another super on, to give them some room to breathe, and left them for a few weeks. When I inspected them the next time, there were no eggs or brood to be found anywhere… just a whole lot more honey! I also added a frame of mostly eggs with some young brood from my other hive at that time. I opened them up again yesterday to see how things were going, and again found no eggs or brood anywhere, and nothing to demonstrate that they had even attempted to raise a queen from the eggs I had put in.
I can’t see any way there would be enough time for them to raise another queen at this point, and allow her time to mate. Most days now are already only hitting highs of 55-60 degrees, so I can’t imagine it will be any warmer several weeks from now. It’s also too late to order a mated queen this year.
So, a long explanation for a quick question: Any other ideas how I might be able to get a queen to save this colony?
Matthew,
The problem with a late August swarm is there is no one for the queen to mate with. Here in western Washington, I see drones getting thrown out at the beginning of August, and it might be even sooner where you live. So even if your bees raised a virgin, it’s not going to work.
I don’t know the answer to your question. Here, we can order queens from the south until October. I’m assuming most of your queens are shipped from New Zealand and they probably won’t ship into Canada in winter?
In your circumstances, I think I would just combine the two colonies, and then split them apart in the spring.
Hello Rusty,
I took a colony from an old barn with brood, nectar and pollen. The colony was in between the wall joists stretching about 5 feet up, but I could not get at the top foot of the colony were there was only honey and very few bees, so I don’t know if I have the queen. I rubber-banded brood and pollen to 8 frames and placed them in a deep, then I put an empty hive box on top to install the bees. When most of the the bees worked their way down to the lower deep I put 10 frames with foundation in, then put inner cover on with empty deep for feeder, and outer cover. The next day I notice bees carrying out presumably dead larvae and some dead bees. I am worried that the brood might have chilled. My question is how long should I wait before checking for eggs or should I order a queen to ensure that the hive doesn’t go queenless for too long of time. I am worried if I wait too long without a queen that I will get a laying worker. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. thank you
Terry,
From your description it sounds like you probably got the queen. Adult bees and larvae die everyday; about 1000 die each day in spring and summer, so seeing dead ones doesn’t mean anything. You wrote this two days ago, so check tomorrow for eggs. I’m sure you will see some.
Btw, you never get “a laying worker.” If you get one, you get dozens or hundreds.
Hello Rusty,
I’m not sure what I have going on in one of my hives. The hive was acting terrible – like they where queenless. I hunted around until I found the queen – I recognized her rite off.
So the thing that got me was the hive was not tending to her or even acting like she was there at all. So I watched her for a good 5 mins or better – She was not behaving like my other queens at all, kinda wandering around aimless like. She did not check out one cell or anything. The workers would bump into her, walk rite over the top of her, kinda bully her in a way.
I did not see any queen cells, does not mean I did not miss one though. I am thinking the hive is getting ready to usurp her. I can’t figure any other reason why they would be so rude.
They have brood in the hive at different stages – did not see any eggs anywhere though. My inclination is to let them be for awhile and let them make their own minds up.
I see where there’s a lot of advice out there to not let them raise their own queens, but I’m inclined to let them do so if they want. I can’t figure out why its a bad thing to let them raise up a new queen. I really liked the ‘old’ queen.
Have u seen this before and what is your thoughts?
Monica,
Yes, I’ve seen that before, especially when I have a virgin walking around. The virgins have pheromones, but they aren’t as enticing (for lack of a better word) as they are after the queen mates. So that is at least one possibility. Sometimes there are two queens in a hive, and one is getting all the attention. But you say you have no eggs, which also suggests it may be a virgin you see. Hard to say. I would just wait it out. I had one like that earlier this year and it took about two weeks for her to start to lay, but now she looks fine.
However, if you think it is the old queen you see, it is possible they plan to replace her. What I don’t understand is your comment, “I see where there’s a lot of advice out there to not let them raise their own queens.” I have very poor luck with purchased queens. Home-grown queens are a product of their environment and nearly always out-perform something you bring in from a different region. I sometimes buy a queen or two when I’m short, and I always regret it.
Has anyone tried Bee Guardian for varroa mites it’s advertised on ebay, organic. Would love to here from anyone that has used it, I’m in the uk.
I don’t know anything about it. Anyone else?
Long time after the comment was posted, but helps closing an open question for future readers.
In the UK we are only allowed to use varroa treatments approved by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD). Bee Guardian is not amongst those listed, organic or not.
Hi Rusty,
First year beekeeper with a hive in Wisconsin. Recently came across your site and love all the info! So I have question and I’m just not too sure which way to go. Upon inspection of my hive last weekend, I found queen cells, no egg, no uncapped larvae so feeling I’m without a queen. The place where I bought my bees from have queens available. I’m going back to take a look this weekend. Based on what was mentioned in a previous post, seems I should wait to see what happens with cells or do I get a new queen? I guess I’m worried about them being queenless for too long but happy to Let them sort it out if that’s best. Thanks!
Monaca,
In preparation for swarming, queen cells are built and the queen stops laying in order to slim down and get ready to fly. Many times the workers back-fill the brood area with nectar so the queen has no place to lay. Based on what you are seeing (queen cells, no eggs, no uncapped larvae) I would say you were on the verge of a swarm. If it were me, I would probably split the colony so as not to lose half the bees. However, if the colony does swarm, the swarm will have the old queen and the original colony will have a home-grown virgin ready to mate.
Thank you for the info and advise! I appreciate the quick response.
I added a mated queen to a queenless hive but the bees weren’t paying attention to her in her cage. A week later they had eaten through the candy but she was still in there. I released her but still they did not pay attention to her. A another week later, didn’t see her, eggs or larvae. After reading the subject above, I will try and add eggs from a medium thriving hive. My question Rusty is: can I take eggs and/larvae from another hive about 10 miles away and put it in or is that too dangerous for the eggs and larvae to travel?
David,
I would put the frame or frames in an empty box, make sure they don’t slide around, keep the box covered to prevent drafts, keep the box out of the sun, and leave enough nurse bees on the frame to cover the larvae. Don’t stop for lunch.
Rusty,
Two weeks ago I noticed that there was a lot of dead larvae on the ground in front of the hive. (I only have one.) I inspected the hive and there was brood, eggs and larvae so I just thought they were cleaning out some drone larva b4 they hatched. Yesterday I looked again and no brood, eggs or larvae and no queen cells. Still lots of workers bringing in pollen and nectar. I did have some honey capped. I’m almost 100% sure I’ve lost my queen so I ordered a new one and it will be here Tuesday. Am I too late to introduce a new queen? Your thoughts pls? Thanks
Joe,
You’re not too late to introduce a queen, if that’s the problem. It’s possible you have a virgin queen in there, following a supersedure. The dead larvae is problematic though. If it’s just drones, that makes sense, but if it’s also workers I would test the hive for mites using a sugar roll or alcohol wash.
When I checked yesterday I didn’t see any empty queen cells or anything that would even resemble a queen cell or supersedure. I went back today and just watched the bees coming and going. All the bees look to be in good health. No deformation and things seem to be normal. The bees are very aggressive. I had to suit up just to get two feet from the hive and usually I can open the hive with no problem at all. I did notice drones flying in and out of hive. Is that normal? And what is a sugar roll and alcohol wash? I never heard of it.
I also thought I might have a virgin queen, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I’ll introduce the new queen just in case. The bees will work things out on that end…..I hope.
Joe,
Drones flying in and out is normal. The sugar roll test (and alcohol wash) are ways of determining the Varroa mite load on your colony.
Hi Rusty,
Thank you for this post. I am the idiot new beekeeper who only got one hive to start, and now I’m dealing with a queenless colony (I have a top bar hive). They were doing SO great for a couple of months, but this third month has been very difficult.
This has been the timeline so far, and I’m hoping that you could give me some advice:
I started noticing multiple queen cells in my hive on July 4th. They were not supercedure cells, they were swarm cells (on the edges). There had to be about a dozen throughout the hive. I checked them every day through my observation window to see if they had swarmed.
On July 10th, they swarmed while I was at work. I had someone in town ready to come capture the swarm if they were nearby, but unfortunately they were not. So I was left with only half of my colony and no queen.
There was plenty of brood left behind–capped, uncapped. There was also a sufficient store of honey. But no eggs that I could see.
I decided to wait it out and let nature take its course, as per advice from a couple of sources.
There were still capped queen cells on July 16th, the day I left for vacation. I was hoping that by the time I came back a few days later, they would be hatched. I did a quick glance when I returned home and the number of bees had increased (presumably the capped brood had hatched, of course). The queen cells were gone or open, so I assumed a queen had hatched.
I was told it would be about 3 weeks after I noticed their queenlessness that I would start seeing eggs. Well I went in yesterday (the 30th… 20 days after they swarmed) and the bees were NOTICEABLY more aggressive. I mean, this is a hive that I have been able to go into and do full inspections without smoke. They were that docile. But I was very unwelcome yesterday. The bees still seem strong…. they are building comb. They have eaten through a lot of their honey stores, but they’re out foraging and storing pollen and keeping the hive clean. There are no pests whatsoever. They’ve sealed it off extremely well.
I looked at every comb and I did not see a queen still, BUT I did see a small section of larvae… extremely small larvae, the kind that would probably be about 4 days old.
Now my dilemma is… is there a laying worker? Or is this a sign that there is a queen and I just didn’t see her? Is their aggressiveness with me them being defensive because they have a new queen? Or could it be other circumstances?
I thank you for your time in reading this post. I know you’re probably shaking your head over the mistakes I’ve made, and believe me, I’m aware of them. I’m still learning every day, and I know next time what to do better. I love beekeeping, I love the bees, and I’m in great distress over possibly losing them all or causing them any harm. I would truly appreciate your advice.
Lauren,
I read the whole thing twice and the only so-called mistake would be starting with only one hive. The rest all seems normal. You’re not queenless if you have a new patch of brood. Laying workers don’t lay in any recognizable pattern, they just lay here and there and everywhere. Plus, if it turns out to be worker brood, that is further proof it’s not laying workers. Check back in a couple days and look at the cappings. They will tell you everything you need to know. If they’ve managed to raise a queen, which it sounds like, the aggressive behavior is most likely due to nectar dearth which normally occurs in the summer months.
Rusty,
It’s me again. Lol. I went back in again early this morning just to have a closer look. Still no eggs. I have a problem with hive beetles. Lots of them! Will they make the queen stop laying? So here’s what I did, and I know I’m an idiot, but i took all my frames about 30 feet away from my hive and shook the bees on the ground. Took my box, bottom board, stand…etc and shook all the bees out. Killed as many of the beetles as I could. Put everything back together and b4 i was finished all the bees were back in the hive. I added 3 beetle blasters and closed the hive back up. I went to the spot where I shook the bees out to see if there were any that had bad wings and couldn’t fly and all were gone except maybe 6 bees that we all in a bunch. I scattered them with my fingers and lo and behold there was the queen. (question # 1) why did all the bees abandon her? I very gently picked her up to put her back in the hive, but she took flight b4 i could make it to hive. (#2) Will she return? My new queen will be here Wednesday. (#3). Should I shake the bees out again b4 i introduce her to make sure this one didn’t come back? I’m totally confused as to why she stopped laying. Could she have been an old queen that came with the package?
Thanks for your time and knowledge.
Joe,
Well, they didn’t all abandon her because you said she was covered by a little bunch. In the confusion, the majority of bees probably didn’t realize she was out there. If you dump the boxes, many of the bees won’t even hit the ground before they fly back home. It often takes 10 or 15 minutes for a colony to realize it is queenless. If the queen flew as easily as you say, she might have been a virgin or only recently mated. She might make it back and she might not. I would not shake them out again. If she flew the first time, she might fly the second time. If you miss her, you’ve disturbed the colony for nothing. I would just look for her frame-by-frame. If you can’t find her, just use standard introduction procedures.
Hi Rusty,
Today is 8-27-17. I looked in my horizontal hive and found no eggs and no larvae and only a very few capped brood here and there. I got this hive in the spring, one month later they swarmed. I let them raise their own queen. They must not have liked her because after a month I saw supersedure cells and no queen or eggs or larvae. So I got another queen and released her a little over 3 weeks ago. They accepted her and she laid eggs but not in abundance.
My other hive is also a new hive this year and already has a 3rd deep on it. I have given the horizontal hive 1:1 sugar syrup all this month and also added pollen patties approximately 1 1/2 weeks ago. My queen is marked. I went through that hive with a fine-toothed comb and a flashlight and still didn’t find her. I even had a second set of eyes. Everyone is running out of queens so if I take a frame from another hive I will have to wait a week and may miss my chance to get another queen. What if she is in there and I just kept missing her? If so, why would she not be laying eggs? Also if she is in there, what happens if I put a new queen in? I would put her in the hive with a 8 gauge 5-inch push-in cage. Any advice you can give me will be appreciated. Linda
Linda,
If you have a queen already, the bees will try to kill the new one right through the push-in cage. They will pile all over it. If you watch, you can pretty much tell by their behavior. As for not laying, it’s common for laying to slow way down in August. I don’t think that is surprising.
Rusty – Here’s my “Can’t Find the Queen” Question. I kept faith with a small (dink like) colony that made it through winter and I decided to see how it progressed. It’s grown and put away some honey stores but nothing in proportion to my other couple hives. It’s also grown more aggressive and continues to show small brood levels which seem somewhat scattered. I finally decided to re-queen. I waited for and picked up a locally bread, mated queen, but now for the life of me can’t locate the current queen. Five times through the full hive, can’t find her. What do you think are my options? If the current queen is still in the hive I assume the worker bees would be hostile towards the new queen. Could I take a frame of brood and a frame or two of honey and pollen and set the new queen up on her own in a small hive while continuing to monitor and search through the main hive that I’m looking to re-queen. Then once I locate the main hive’s queen or determine she’s just gone, recombine. Look forward to any suggestions you have. Bill
Bill,
You can put the new caged queen in the hive. You will know within a few minutes whether they try to feed her or if they are aggressive toward her. Then make your decision about what to do. If the colony has become aggressive lately, it’s very likely queenless.
Two to 3 weeks had eggs, now bottom 10 frames very few brood, no new eggs have been laid, 2nd box full honey frames, outer some brood, no new eggs. Question: Should I buy a new queen asap?
John,
Have you looked for the queen? Maybe the hive is about to swarm, in which case the queen may have stopped laying. Have you noticed any backfilling or queen cells? If not, a new queen may be in order.
There were a few queen cells 2 weeks ago I got rid of them not knowing any better. Yesterday I again looked no queen, several queen cells but were not full. I ordered a queen.
Then today when I woke up a bear had demolished the hive. Some bees left, not much honey, very little brood. Bear still around, electric fence, etc have been ordered. Small chance I can recover the hive with a new queen if I move some brood to a different box a few feet away with the new queen?
John,
You can certainly try. It might work.
We are new this year to beekeeping. We have 4 hives and 3 are doing amazing, two deeps per hive.
We have 1 hive that had 3 queen cells 2 weeks ago and no sign of a queen but lots of capped brood. Now as of my inspection today we have no queen, no brood. Am I too late in the year to raise a new queen by adding in a frame of brood from another hive? I added one in today but they were mostly capped from my strongest hive. Should I add a frame of larva?
Jeff,
As long as drones are still around, you may be able to raise a queen from a young larva. Larvae can be hard to find this time of year because brood rearing is on the wane, but if you look carefully, you may find a few.
It’s also possible your colony already raised a new queen but she isn’t ready to start laying. It takes a while for a new queen to get up and running. See When will a newly-emerged queen begin to lay?
Thanks for this fantastic forum. After the recent forest fires and hazardous smoky air in Oregon I inspected my two-box hive and found no brood, larvae or eggs. There are plenty of bees and they weren’t aggressive at all. I had been feeding them for the last few weeks to make up for low stores and there was lots of capped honey, nectar and pollen. They seem to be bringing in pollen and were filling in the brood space in the top box. I looked for the queen but didn’t see her but she was not marked and I’ve had a hard time seeing her in the past. Is it too late in the season to requeen or should I just let the hive go and take some honey? Will it actually be good honey since I’ve been feeding for a couple of weeks? I should also mention that I have not had much luck (or skill) in getting them through the winter in the past. This colony started as a nuke this spring.
Christine,
I’m not convinced the colony is queenless because many queens don’t lay much in September. It sounds to me like it might be normal for this time of year. I would just leave the honey for them.
To preface, I live at 9000 ft in Colorado and I only have had 1 hive this summer (due to financial reasons). I was gone for the month of September and when I returned at the end of September I performed a hive inspection. During the inspection, I noticed that there was no brood, no eggs, and A LOT of nectar and honey stored. All 14 of my long lang deep frames were filled completely full and the hive was totally honey bound. I looked multiple times to try and find the queen to no avail. The bees also seemed unusually aggressive. My partner got stung 3 times on the head while he was hanging his laundry outside. Anyways, I ended up checkerboarding two deep frames to see if the colony would draw out any comb and to see if the queen would start laying if she was in there and if she had the space to lay. The bees did in fact draw out about 1/2 a frame with comb in about a week but there were no eggs and they started to fill the new comb with honey.
It is important to note that it October now… I ended up ordering a queen from OHB which arrived today (10/6/20). I went in and set the queen down to see how the bees would react. In all reality, it was very anticlimactic for a while. There were a few bees who climbed on the cage and they seemed pretty calm. They were so calm in fact that after about 20 minutes, I ended up “drilling” out the candy so I could do a direct release. The queen didn’t seem to want to leave the cage and at this point I notice that a few bees are biting the cage but I can still “shew” them away easily with my finger. I ended up attaching the cage to a frame and dropping it in to see if she’d leave and while I was doing that, I accidentally smushed one of the bees on the queen cage (eek…!) this caused one of the bees to begin stinging at the cage. I pulled that one bee off and the rest of the bees on the cage seemed fairly docile with the occasional biting at the cage. I ended up walking away for about an hour and going back and sealing up the candy hole again because I panicked….. Is it possible for the hive to accept the queen if they have been at all aggressive with her? Could the original queen still be in there? How badly did I fork up the queen introduction??
Any additional thoughts or comments would be great!!
It is normal and natural for a queen to take a break as winter approaches. Often, a completely healthy colony will have no brood or just a tiny bit in October, November, and December. After the winter solstice, brood-rearing slowly begins to ramp up.
The one thing that signals possible queen loss is the aggressive, stinging behavior you noticed earlier in the season. I’m actually surprised you got your bees to draw comb in September because most colonies have few bees of wax-secretion age going into winter. Lots of honey going into winter is a good thing, and I wouldn’t consider such a hive to be “honey bound” because the brood nest should be shrinking then, not expanding. Furthermore, checkerboarding a hive just before winter will make it harder for the cluster to keep warm.
It seems like you are trying to achieve spring conditions in a colony going into winter. Spend some time learning about the colony life cycle, and remember that colonies expand for half the year, January thru June in the northern hemisphere, and shrink for half the year, July through December.
Hi,
Firstly, thanks for all the amazing information!
I am in Gloucestershire Uk and have 2 colonies. I am a little concerned about both. They had been strong but have repeatedly swarmed this spring and now I fear that they are both queenless.
Two days ago a large swarm appeared to emerge from #2. I wasn’t here but it’s what my wife told me. It settled in the tree above. Sadly it was completely unreachable as it was well over 30 ft up. The weather has been cold and wet and I am pretty certain that most of the bees are dead or dying.
I thought I spotted a queen in #1 last week but no sign today. No eggs either. I also found 1 queen cup and 2 open queen cells which I left alone. I am hoping she is mated but just not yet laying?
#2 I was unsure if she was queenright or not so 7 days ago I broke down all the queen cells. I inspected again today and found 1 queen cell and 1 queen cup. No eggs.
I have nucs with caught swarms, both of which are small but building comb.
I am pretty sure that the issue was space. I think I was a little slow in giving them more and one of them really should have been split. In previous years they had been slow wax builders when they had too much space. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!
My instinct right now is to leave them all alone for a couple of weeks and see if they right themselves? At what point should I intervene again? I did wonder whether combining them with the small swarms might be a solution?
Sometimes, especially, when it’s cold and rainy, it can take quite a while for a new queen to get mated and start laying. See “When will a newly-emerged queen begin to lay?” for more information. Also, if you destroy all, or even most, of the queen cells, you could be destroying the colony. See “Should I destroy extra queen cells?”
If you don’t see any eggs after the times indicated in the article, it is probably time to combine the colonies with the small swarms.