Yates study notes also state somewhere that a queen stops laying a day or two before a swarm leaves so if you see eggs the queen must still be present.
In my experience the queen never stops laying before a swarm emerges although they do slim her down and the egg laying rate is well reduced.
If you see a swarm emerge and check the hive you will always find some eggs in it. Sometimes lots of them.
I agree. That's what seems to happen with ours, even though the books suggest otherwise. Now just need to decide which of the 3 hives my husband checked two days ago threw out the swarm we caught yesterday. Successfully put into cardboard box, bees happily fanning, coming and going ... then when he went to hive it in the evening it was gone. Hoping it was a mating swarm from the big colony we forced to requeen itself (queenie was laying far too many drones and the parent hive - same line - failed to supersede of its own accord last year, same problem, and died out) which stopped for a rest and has now returned home. Too wet to check today.Originally Posted by Jon
Could just have been a swarm which had no queen in it. The same has happened to me.
Years ago I remember I collected a swarm from on of my own hives in a skep and had it sitting for the stragglers to go in.
When I checked it an hour later it was empty. The bees did not take off to move elsewhere. They just drifted back to the hive of origin.
This is also what happens if a swarm comes out of a hive with a clipped queen. The swarm settles somewhere then drifts back over the next hour due to the lack of a queen.
Never heard of a swarm without a queen - just over-enthusiastic bees? None of our queens are clipped.
Ok, I have a Nuc that the queen cell hatched around 26/6. Still no eggs & I saw the wee bisom tonight. Should I introduce eggs or be a little more patient?
I saw eggs for the first time today on a queen hatched on 21/6. No larva, just eggs and there was nothing last week.
That gives me some hope but I am sure I've read if nothing within 4 weeks there may be an issue. She looked ok.
It's not unknown to wait for up to six weeks before a queen starts laying up here. As Black Comb says a frame with eggs will do no harm and it will give the colony a boost.
I sell queens and sometimes I end up talking myself out of the majority of sales as most inquiries are from beekeepers panicking a little after their swarmed hive takes a while to get their virgin mated and laying. My advice is always to try a test frame if they havent already done so, and by the lack of further desperate need of a queen from these previously desperate beekeepers I imagine the introduction of a test frame has prompted the virgin to get going, or nature has just taken its course.
If any of these beekeepers are just being tight and thinking they can get away with letting an emergency queen raised on the test frame head their colony then they deserve every queen problem they get in subsequent seasons!
Amazing how few get back to me, either for a queen when the test frame says "queenless", or a word of thanks for the advice as it turns out they didnt need to shell out forty quid on one of my precious queens after all.
There's some nonsense hitting the forums this year about "scientific" research which "proves" that emergency queens are as good as any well reared one. Personally I'm of the opinion that various people have misread/misunderstood the message, which originates in one of the Welsh Association publications because when I read it that's most certainly not the story that I got. In fact, the author cautions against such badly produced queens -but some people like to fit things to suit their own abilities.
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