How long should I give a vigin to start laying?

[scaie]

One if my hives has a virgin who has been hatched for about 5 weeks, she looks quite big now. The weather hasn't been bad so I think she's mated but still isn't laying. How long do I give her to start laying? Should I hedge my bets and put a frame of eggs in?

[Black Comb]

i've had a couple of big colonies this year that have taken 5 weeks from emergence to start laying.
I put frames of eggs into both and they started to lay.
whether the eggs induced them to lay or it was coincidence i will never know.
frame of eggs can do no harm IMO.

[scaie]

Hi Black Comb
That's what I was thinking, putting a frame of eggs wouldn't do any harm. Hopefully she's will start laying soon! Thanks for the advice

[Neils]

I agree with Black Comb. About 4-5 weeks is the point that I'd put a frame of eggs into a colony that I wasn't sure about and I've equally seen more than a few colonies with eggs in the week after. I do think that the brood pheromones can help "kick start" a new queen that is taking her time, at worst you get queen cells and know you need to do something.

[prakel]

I do think that the brood pheromones can help "kick start" a new queen that is taking her time

I wonder if any effect is actually on the workers rather than the queen directly? I've seen similar examples, and like Black Comb I've never really been 100% sure whether it's just coincidence or not but I have thought that there may well be something going on with the workers.

[Neils]

I'm certainly open to suggestion. What sort of worker influence are you thinking?

I don't think it's coincidence, I've seen it too many times now

[prakel]

Excuse any anthropomorphic content, it's just a lack of well defined thoughts at this stage -I understand what I'm thinking but finding it surprisingly hard to put into words!

I'm looking at this from the perspective that a colony can become 'lethargic', effectively loosing heart after being left brood-less for a while, now, it strikes me that there may be a component here that see's these disheartened bees effectively ignoring the newly mated queen. With the addition of brood the colony returns to a more stable 'right' condition -I wouldn't even be surprised if an empty comb from which the last of the brood has recently emerged had the same effect; closer to the state the colony should be in.

While there's doubtless a physical component in the queen's need to lay there's also the very real influence of the workers on her condition and laying (or not) rate. So, does the addition of the brood cause the workers to push the queen into laying? I think so, but as always, happy to see good research even if it means I'm wrong, again!

[Neils]

From a laymans perspective it seems a reasonable suggestion and I think it is often very easy to view the queen in isolation in these situations. We consider the colony when introducing queens in terms of accepting/rejecting the queen, but perhaps more readily in these sort of situations think along the lines of "when is the queen going to start laying?" Rather than perhaps a view of "when is this colony going to start behaving 'normally'?". I know I'm certainly guilty of that.

A frame of eggs is rarely just that rather a frame of brood that happens to have (a lot of) eggs and it does seem a reasonable assumption that the presence of brood and it's pheromones might play a role in kick starting not just the new queen, but the colony as a whole, back into a state where egg laying and brood rearing is normal again.

[Jon]

You sure the virgin is as old as 5 weeks?
Sometimes a virgin leaves with a small cast and the one which remains in the colony could have emerged maybe 10 days later.
Either way the sell by date is approaching if she does not start to lay soon.
Mine are averaging about 12 days and I have had some laying 8 days from emergence but they do mate a lot more quickly from apideas.

[Adam]

Queens do seem to start to lay quicker when mated from mini-nucs. (Which is the opposite of what is stated in Yates' study notes). Sometimes it can take a while in a big colony. However, 5 weeks is pushing it. I suspect that it takes while for the queen's "I'm mated and ready for action, feed me lots" pheromone to grow within her so mated queens are laying within just 3 days in a small stock.

Adding brood is no bad thing as it allows the bees to do something about a duff queen or no queen and will inhibit laying workers in the case that there's no queen. And LW's are just something to be avoided.