Queen in super

[Bridget]

Hello fellow beekeepers,
please may I ask advice on how to proceed regarding a queen laying in supers? A week ago I found no brood at all in the brood box in a colony which I hoped had superseded. It had a supercedure cell and I therefore had left it for 4 weeks. On checking the supers I found brood of all stages. I carefully went through all the frames but could not find the queen. I shook the bees off the super frames into the brood box, put the Queen excluder back on and the empty super frames back on. Bees were not happy from the start and very aggressive by the end of this procedure.
This morning I wore gauntlets instead of washing up gloves to check if queen was in brood box. Not a sign of brood but bees immediately became very feisty and defensive and poured out of the brood box to attack me. I went through the supers and found eggs. So queen must be still up there in supers. I took the supers a few metres away and went through searching for the queen. No sign so she must be a very small queen. I again shook as many of the bees off the supers as I could into the top of the brood box. Bees were attacking me big time so I was grateful for gauntlets. Even so I have had about 20 stings through my bee suit and had to retreat. Not fun!
Sorry about the saga. My question is this. Having not found the queen beforehand, could I still combine this colony with its next door neighbour? Will the intruder queen kill the resident queen do you think? I would quite like to combine if I can as I have too many colonies.
Many thanks, Bridget

[Steve 1972]

You need to find the Queen really before you combine..i have had a similar problem this year with a Queen getting through the exluder several times...luckily she is marked..not sure if she is just a slim girl but i changed the exluder last week just in case one of the wires on the wired excluder is slightly bent..regarding wearing thick gloves that is a bad idea imo as you can not feel the stings but the defensive bees can smell the attack pheromone on your thick leather gloves and will continue to attack..i would also stop shaking the frames if there is a chance of the Queen being on them as she could be damaged..you could try smoking the bees down through the supers into the brood box if you definitely can not find the Queen and change the excluder..good luck..

[AndrewLD]

On the assumption that your brood of all stages is worker brood and you have ruled out laying workers.......
It seems likely that the newly mated queen made it into the supers before she became to big and that on your first attempt you didn't clear all the bees down into the brood box.... Whether you managed it on the second attempt is open to question.
You don't say how big this colony is nor how many supers you have on but trying to unite before you have got the brood out of the supers is going to be difficult and just plonking the two colonies together is going to result in one queen being killed and you have no control over which. This doesn't sound a good plan to me.
One other point; colonies get stressed and defensive in August when the flow stops and that IMO is not a good time to be thinking of uniting, which is better done when there is a flow on.
As the danger of swarming has reduced and as you can't predict winter losses, might it not better to wait until Spring; unless you are uniting because the colony won't survive winter but that is not the reason you have given.

[NigelP]

I would put the supers underneath the brood box and remove queen excluder.
Next time you open up the queen should be in the brood box and you could add back the queen excluder. They usually like to lay in the warmest (top) part of the hive. But as we are talking bees nothing is ever 100% certain.
Then check where she is now laying....and hopefully problem solved.

[Bridget]

Thank you all very much. Your comments have been very helpful. I will put super with brood under brood as Nigel suggests. Also I will double up with nitrile gloves rather than put on gauntlets. The weather was have been a bit close this morning too so I expect mostly my fault that the bees got defensive.

[Patrick]

I had two colonies this year where the queens found their way up into the supers - in both cases older queens so likely operator error or faulty excluder. A real pain in the..

In both cases the brood laid in the supers all developed as entirely drone. When they emerge they get trapped by and in the excluder and they need to be released over several occasions.

This time of year it may not be laid up as drone brood but do be aware of the risk. Be interested in what you find.

[Steve 1972]

Too true Patrick with the drone brood..lots get stuck and die trying to get into the bottom box through the excluder..but on a good note the survives fly out of the supers with a loud buzz of freedom when the crown board is cracked open.. .

[AndrewLD]

I think I may be in a minority of one here.....

In August I do not open the hive except for taking off honey and putting on varroa treatment, which in my case also involves nadiring a good super of stores so they can sort themselves for winter.
Uniting should have been done before now, random inspections - not on, disease inspections - what were you looking for during all those inspections when you were looking at swarming? Heather is a little different I guess....
This is not the time to be playing with bees and perhaps the bees agree?

[NigelP]

I think I may be in a minority of one here.....

I'm going to have to take you to task here Andrew, You have made the assumption that what applies in your area applies to everywhere else in the UK.
It doesn't.
In my area still have Nuc's waiting for queens to get mated. Still waiting for breeder queens to arrive to be set up in Nuc's. Hives on the heather won't be back until mid-Sept. The timings of what to do and when to do it in my local patch are totally different to yours. I'm not saying what happens around me is typical, but varroa treatments won't be applied until Mid-Sept in my patch.
People need to look at what happens in their own micro-climate and act accordingly rather than follow generic advice from a different area. Hell my garden bees have yet to discover the balsam that is now flowering profusely.
Mate of mine on the Yorkshire wolds about 30 miles away...it's all over and nothing around...... he is currently feeding his bees whereas mine are still bringing in nectar.
Small distances can make a tremendous difference in when and what you need to do to your bees.

[AndrewLD]

I concede your point - up to a point.

You and your fellow beekeepers up north of the environmental divide that runs from the Severn estuary to the Humber have a very different pattern to us down south of the divide and it is my mistake to lump everyone into one barrel.

I don't know what the excuse is for beekeepers living below the divide but I think my underlying point was to allow our little friends to sort themselves out for winter without unnecessary interference. We can put it down to pheromones on gloves or the weather but the modern tendency to blame it on this or that often just masks the fact that you are just annoying your bees.