Long story, swarm, no queen, no brood, locals said wait, wait, there is probably a virgin in there…meanwhile, we got down to zero brood and still no queen.
Bought a queen, they didn’t accept her, had to borrow a frame from a friend and then they created a queen.
All of that time with no queen resulted in a honey bound hive. She had some space to lay but not much. Harvested a frame and put a wax foundation frame in for them to draw comb for her. Now that is being filled with honey and very few brood cells or larvae. Lots of bees though and lots of orienteering today so we have a healthy population. Curious if we should buy a frame of plastic foundation just so she has a place to start laying winter bees. Also saw two succession cells so a bit worried about that, too. Any advice?
Based on experience, plus how I understand “bee culture”, we don’t have to worry about a brood box being honey bound, as long as there is somewhere in the hive for the bees to move honey to. We need to remember that bees work during the night as well.
In the video “City of Bees”, they point out how the queen is just an egg laying machine. The cells are cleaned & polished before she can lay eggs in them. The bees dictate how many eggs she is to lay, & feed her accordingly, while preparing the area she is to lay in
With that in mind, it’s easy to imagine the bees removing honey during long nights, from the cells they want her to lay in.
PS. On the subject of the new queen the locals spoke about: That would be the obvious conclusion after a colony has swarmed. The only downside would be the possibility that the victorious virgin queen could fail to get mated. We need to understand the timelines. The time before the virgin queen goes on mating flights, 5-6 days, then the time before she starts laying eggs, another 5-6 days. Then another 9 days before we see the first worker brood getting sealed. Therefore after 21 days, we should start to see sealed workers. If I don’t see any brood at all after the 21 days are up, I’ll slip in a frame of brood containing worker eggs.