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Thread: Bee behaviour interpretation needed

  1. #11

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    Is it known how long a (queen) bee can survive without being fed? I'd like to leave the hives alone now after so many intrusions and plan to go back in on starve day -1 in case she hasn't been fed.

  2. #12
    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    They'll feed her through the cage/wire ... unless they completely entomb it in wax
    You'll usually find they burrow underneath the edge of the wire to release her in due course.

  3. #13
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wheresthedog View Post
    Is it known how long a (queen) bee can survive without being fed? I'd like to leave the hives alone now after so many intrusions and plan to go back in on starve day -1 in case she hasn't been fed.
    I know you're now talking about the push in cage but when doubtful for any reason at all I've often left queens in standard introduction/travel cages (with or without attendants depending on where I've sourced the queens) for seven days before removing the tab. IF you go back and find that the queen has starved to death in the cage the one thing that you can console yourself with is that they weren't going to accept and keep her long term anyway.

  4. #14
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I would strongly suspect that your colonies are not queenless

  5. #15
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Bees normally add a bit of wax to the outside of the introduction cage but they don't normally seal it up completely like that.

  6. #16

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    Thanks For the continued info. Here's an update and another puzzle....

    I left the two bought queens in the push in cages for a week and released them. One queen has been accepted and is laying up nicely. The other one on the other hand.....

    At first all seemed well. A week after releasing her, she was still present and had begun to lay. The week after that however and she was no where to be seen with no eggs present. I looked and looked (for around 15 mins) and eventually found what I presumed to be a 'scrub' queen (small but definitely queen shaped) which seemed to confirm Jon's feelings that the hive wasn't in fact queenless after all. I watched her on the frame for a minute or two and she seemed to be going through the motions of laying eggs - dipping her abdomen into cells pausing and moving on to the next but she wasn't depositing any eggs.

    I thought i'd leave her be and see what happened and I marked her so I could find her more easily next time.

    A week later I opened it up and it was full of eggs! All perfectly sited in the bottom of the cells and only one a piece so must have been laid by a queen and not a laying worker. I went through the frames and did a double take when I saw the bought queen had come back and had virtually laid up the whole brood box with the freshly marked/scrub queen of the week previous was nowhere to be seen?!

    All was well if a bit confusing but happy that both bought queens seemed to have been accepted.

    Went in today to inspect and the hive appears to queenless again with no sign of her and all the eggs have gone - ie no brood where the eggs should have hatched. The bees seem to have ousted the bought queen, removed all her eggs and have started to fill the vacant cells with honey? It's as if I dreamt last week. Could I be going crazy?

  7. #17

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    You took up beekeeping, so you must be crazy already

    How much sealed brood is there?

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