Gday all,
I was wondering if anyone has had a queen pass through queen excluder and lay in flow frame?
She seems to have only laid in centre top flow frame at the bottom only on both sides.
On inspecting the hive I found this but there are fresh eggs in brood box and larvae which indicate she is in bottom box as of 5 days ago. I searched but couldnt find her, so I shook all the bees off flow frames into brood box put excluder back on and closed it up. Any ideas would be appreciated. Could I have had a laying worker up in frames?
cheers
Dave
Hi Dave, you CAN have a laying worker laying in the comb above the QX, at the same time as the queen is happily laying below the QX. I often see it when I’m harvesting the honey. I simply cut the section of comb that contains the brood out before extracting the honey. It will always be brood in drone comb.
Even with a QX fitted, sometimes for one reason or another, the queen can end up above the QX. I often find that. It’s always something to be aware of, that it can happen.
thanks jeff for your reply.
problem is that it is in flow frames so cant cut it out. I just made sure no bees on frames and put it back on.
I am hoping the bees will just clean it out now. I thought I had chalkbrood with a few mummies out the front but after inspection that is where they are coming from, you could see mummied larvae in flow frame.
You’re welcome Dave, it probably is chalkbrood if your finding mummies outside of the entrance. I have found that the chalkbrood will be more evident on drone larvae when I have found a light infestation in a hive.
Getting back to brood in flow frames. I think it’s a good policy to always inspect the flow frames before harvest. That way if you do see brood at any stage in the frames, you can leave that frame until the brood has hatched. Added to the advantage of knowing whether your extracting all ripe honey or not.
We have observed (someone else’s flow hive) that viewing the end of a frame to see if the honey is ready to take or not isn’t a true indication of whether the honey is ready to take.
Some frames looked ready & they weren’t, other frames looked like they weren’t ready & they were while one frame looked ready & it was ready.
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