BBKA Forum

Hi again
I have a small cast of bees, unfortunately the queen did not survive.
They are in a seven frame brood box . I introduced a frame of eggs thinking they would develop queen cells
and ultimately have a new queen. I checked after four days and no queen cells not one ??
I am positive there is no queen . Any ideas
Thanks

maybe a small virgin queen in the cast which are extremely hard to spot.

Hi Dolly.

If they haven't used the donor eggs then they are happy.

Also if their demeanour is calm then they are fine.

As said, possibly a virgin needing some time to get into lay. give here a few weeks.

checking once a week is enough disturbance.
for now.

Its important to understand the difference in behavior between queen right and queenless bees. Too many people want to stick a frame of eggs or introduce a new queen when one is not needed. Better record keeping and understanding of the breeding cycle is a must.

Chances are that there's a queen in the hive, with warm weather forecast for most of us, she should mate and be laying by next weekend. You can take back the frame of brood if you are not concerned about disease although leaving it in with the swarm will give it a good boost.
If the colony doesn't have massive amount of stores, a feed will do them no harm in any case and will help identify whether there is a queen present as you will tend to see an area of polished cells where you would expect the queen to lay, surrounded by those stores - much easier to see if there is plenty of honey or syrup there.

Hi thanks for all the advice ☺