Hello all, I'm a new member and new beekeeper. I have 2 colonies: one is not long hived and is fine but perhaps slow, the other is a nuc I hived today.
I've had the new nuc less than a week. I was delayed hiving them but had a brief look early on. I saw they had space and didn't inspect properly.
I moved them over today. Their population is strong, but they were extremely agitated, not at all like the other colony in similar weather. I was disturbed that I saw no brood! Loads of backfilling, but no sign of the queen(marked) or any queen cells. (It's possible that the population and angriness of this colony put me and my untrained eyes off enough to miss a bit of capped brood, so I'll be double checking.)
Even my beginner calculations are telling me that if there is no brood now, then there was no queen present when I took the nuc less than a week ago. Can I safely assume that?
This is my first 'situation' and I've got slight beginner panic setting in... My first thought is: How long do I have before a colony's population is too old to be saved?
Is it possible that even with a replacement queen, which might take a little while, there would be no nurse-aged bees left?
Am I correct that these are my options:
A) Introduce a new queen without knowing how long ago the last brood emerged. Is this unwise?
B) Introduce a frame with eggs and hope to raise a new queen.
C) A and B at the same time.
D) Leave them to it and just pray I missed a queen cell.
E) Combine my colonies, leaving me with one.
I'm waiting to hear from the nuc seller, but I wanted to check my basic bee logic. A real obstacle is my earlier colony doesn't have the resources yet to spare brood.
Any comments appreciated!
I've had the new nuc less than a week. I was delayed hiving them but had a brief look early on. I saw they had space and didn't inspect properly.
I moved them over today. Their population is strong, but they were extremely agitated, not at all like the other colony in similar weather. I was disturbed that I saw no brood! Loads of backfilling, but no sign of the queen(marked) or any queen cells. (It's possible that the population and angriness of this colony put me and my untrained eyes off enough to miss a bit of capped brood, so I'll be double checking.)
Even my beginner calculations are telling me that if there is no brood now, then there was no queen present when I took the nuc less than a week ago. Can I safely assume that?
This is my first 'situation' and I've got slight beginner panic setting in... My first thought is: How long do I have before a colony's population is too old to be saved?
Is it possible that even with a replacement queen, which might take a little while, there would be no nurse-aged bees left?
Am I correct that these are my options:
A) Introduce a new queen without knowing how long ago the last brood emerged. Is this unwise?
B) Introduce a frame with eggs and hope to raise a new queen.
C) A and B at the same time.
D) Leave them to it and just pray I missed a queen cell.
E) Combine my colonies, leaving me with one.
I'm waiting to hear from the nuc seller, but I wanted to check my basic bee logic. A real obstacle is my earlier colony doesn't have the resources yet to spare brood.
Any comments appreciated!