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British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Adding a queen to broodless hive

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #10970  by Bananas
 22 May 2021, 07:24
I’m completely queenless in my hive and there are a reasonably healthy number of bees. They swarmed about a month ago and there is no brood for that I can see.

I’d like to buy a laying queen and introduce and am familiar with the techniques introduce here slowly.

The question I have is will the introduction be affected by the type of bees in the hive? Presumably most of them will be flying bees now with far less nurse bees and if they are then presented with eggs, will they look after them?!!

I have seen techniques where the flying bees are separated from the nurse bees during the introduction just to make sure she is accepted a little better. If like to do this but concerned that the hive has a lot of flying bees and not many nurse bees. In case the question comes, I don’t have any other viable hives to play around with
 #10974  by AdamD
 22 May 2021, 09:18
If the colony is genuinely queenless and with no brood, they should welcome a queen, and yes they will be able to feed and look after the brood. If you are not sure whether there is a queen present you can add a test-frame if you can get one or look for the area which the bees have prepared for her to lay. This gives a little more information:-
https://www.norfolkbee.co.uk/beekeepers-FAQ/when-will-my-new-queen-start-to-lay

Possible reasons for non-acceptance of a new queen:-
1)There's one already.
2) Laying workers are starting to develop.
3)Sometimes they just don't want her. :(