Originally Posted by
Silvbee
Hi NKW,
Welcome to the forum and beekeeping. I don't know where you're based but if its Scotland I'd advise against going through your hives this early in the season, certainly lifting frames and looking for brood. Temperatures, particularly night time temperatures are still too low for inspections and bees waste energy warming the brood back up after an inspection at this time of year.
That being said the best way of finding out if all is OK is to watch the entrance. If bees are bringing in pollen then the queen is active and may just be a bit slow on the start up. If you are sure the queen is dead and the hive is hopelessly queenless then the only thing that can be done is to requeen. If there are good numbers of bees in the hive then they should be OK for a few weeks but the hive will start to lose bees quickly so try and source a 2019 queen ASAP.
Good luck and let us know how you get on.
SB
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