Nope … you should be able to tell tomorrow if they're queenless by the the way they've treated the egg-containing comb you've patched in. I think I've read somewhere of beekeepers using the hive tool to break the wall down a bit across a row of cells to encourage them to draw out QC's.
"Late" supercedure for you is 23rd of June or so isn't it??
My news is I received a copy of Cueilleurs de miel (Honey gatherers) which has stunning images in it. It's on Amazon at the best price in some time.
The website for that book is stunning. I routinely "borrow" images from it for talks and posters. In fact I did so not five minutes ago.Originally Posted by fatshark
I shall have a look at the frame tommorrow morn and squish the bottom row of cells down. I just read on the other forum that I am going to just raise a scrub queen that will be useless. I could have grafted but was in a rush tonight to be honest. I was planning on proper queen raising starting in a few weeks.
Not quite sure why I suppose the alternative would be to unite them and - once you've got some queens - split the entire box up into nucs perhaps.
Surprising how often the term scrub queen and useless appear on the same page. Often they do just fine, getting you out of a tight spot and keeping the colony ticking over. Sounds quite useful to me.
As an aside, for those that don't know the photographs from Eric Tourneret, his website (referred to above) is here. Next time you're firing up that shiny stainless steel 12 frame radial beauty have a look at how some harvest their honey.
Bees-Nepal-Hunters32.jpg
Image by Eric Tourneret used in awe.
Well I had a quick peek and nothing being drawn from the patch of eggs I donated.
I will leave them until the weekend now and then try grafting.
Could I have a laying worker if the queen was a late supercedure last year that was misfiring ? Any tell tale signs ? Could it be its just bloody miserable today outside so the bees are not up for raising a queen straight away ?
No young bees and so they can't? But you'd expect some old ones to at least try. Maybe they've just been hanging around too long and have got depressed?
Oh, and sycamore are out all over, as is that Norway maple. Edinburgh and Tayside, brollies out just in time for the rain.
Could I raise a queen in stronger q+ hive using harden method and then pop it in this one ?
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La f๊te du travail- labour day. Except for the bees
Walking around this morning, I noticed them going crazy on the maples that were in the sun. First time this year. Always amazed by how it begins suddenly. It signals the start of the big build up towards the lime in June.
Well nothing is easy.
Single QC being drawn from my donated eggs BUT butterfingers then dropped the sodding frame. The lip of the cell being drawn was slightly bent - will this result in a dud ? I guess I will graft into this hive just in case.
Second problem. Theres my marked queen running about and laying above the QX in another hive. Should be easy to sort out if we have some nice weather.
Its never simple eh.
They usually repair queen cells as long as the larva is not damaged. You have to be careful to make sure the larvae are all removed if you are removing queen cells for whatever reason as they can rebuild a cell from the base if a larva is intact in its pool of jelly.
Funny day. Cold then the sun came out and so did the bees. We repaired the bee house roof and then watched bees sunning themselves. I seem to remember someone saying here that it was the young bees doing some orientation. Then saw two bees clearing out a half formed larvae. Any reason for this?
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