My hive is small, It was a small split form an expanding hive with the old queen being one we have.
The hive is about 4 months old since we moved and housed them. Numbers have not increased dramatically over that time but have definitely risen steadily. Brood has been a little patchy but steady. We are on the NSW central coast and there has been no shortage of nectar or pollen. The bees have been consistent and busy bringing in on average 20-30 loads of pollen a minute on sunny days. I did my last brood inspection three weeks ago when I went back to sea and noted plenty of larva but could not find any eggs (I have never been able to locate the queen). I noticed two new developed but open queen cells hanging down from the comb in the middle of the comb on one of the frames.
Got home from sea yesterday and noted the following today during hive inspection today:
Still could not find the queen…
Numbers have not reduced.
There are no eggs & no larva.
Bees are busier but not aggressive.
There is plenty of capped honey, lots of nectar, lots of bee bread and still pollen coming in (although not as much). They have tons of resources.
*Hive is very clean and tidy.
*There are no drone cells in any of the frames.
I stayed around to watch after inspection and noted lots of entrance activity with dozens of bees coming out onto the landing board and fanning their Nasonov glands with backsides in the air.
Sometimes queens can be hard to find. If your queen is gone & the colony has no resources to make one with, the colony is doomed. However, all you need is a frame of brood containing worker eggs & or very young worker larvae, for the bees to make a new queen with. Place that right in the middle of the bee mass. Then check in 5 days to look for emergency queen cells. If that doesn’t work, keep repeating this every 7-10 days until it eventually works.
We are in winter, so bare in mind that bees will slow down during this time of year. Reduce your entrance, if you haven’t already done so.
Hey Jeff,
Thanks for the info/reply. Unfortunately I don’t have a second hive so cannot get some more brood with eggs. Have the flow hive entrance reducer on as well. Will check back next warm day i get to see if there is a new queen or even the old one… I’ve had them 4 months and have never been able to spot the queen but always saw the evidence in brood. eggs & larva etc.
fingers crossed but I fear that I will have to start looking for a nuc for spring…
Hiya Mariner and welcome! Any chance there is another beek nearby? You could check for someone using the search here perhaps. If you found someone in your area they might swap a frame or two of BIAS (brood in all stages) for your hive. I rescued a weak colony coming out of winter this way one season - brought home 2 frames well insulated between drawn comb in the center of a nuc box & covered with a blanket, from another beek I met who lives about 30 mins away from me. My bees quickly used these resources to make a new queen
Hi Frank, you’re welcome. @Eva hit the nail on the head. You need to locate your local bee club. Sometimes as a new member, they’ll allocate you a mentor. It wont matter if the mentor is not keen on Flow hives. Maybe just tell them you have a Langstroth hive, because the keeping of the bees is the same, whether you have a Flow Lang., or a traditional Lang.
If your colony doesn’t have a queen, you need to act quickly, otherwise laying workers will commence, which is way more challenging to overcome.
