Queen missing already & Queen cells plentiful

[cambsbeekeep]

I have two hives in my garden, both had produced queen cells on Friday 19th when I inspected. One had a productive queen (lots of good pattern brood on 7 frames in a Commercial Brood box), but they had developed several QC's on the face of a few frames. I took out the frame with the best QC on to a NUC, took another frame of brood + some stores + bees on both frames. Left queen in original hive and culled the rest of the QC's.
Second hive queen missing (went through frames three times, but no sign of her but eggs, larvae & brood in good pattern). Several QC's on a few frames, again on face of frames generally.
Had to leave them for a week, and inspected today (first chance to).
Queens missing in both hives - and no sign of eggs, although lots of sealed brood and some larvae. Several QC's again on a few frames in both hives, mainly on the face of the frames (I saw one at the bottom).
Both hives are on Commercial brood boxes and have space, plus two supers on each.
What is the answer? I Currently I have left a QC (sealed/capped) in each hive and culled the rest. There are plenty of bees in each hive, so it is not obvious they have swarmed off - I would have expected far fewer bees in if that was the case. Am I deluding myself, and what is the solution? Please?

[Chrisbarlow]

No idea really, suggestions / speculation would be

possibly the one queen did swarm but highly unlikely I admit

Possibly supercedures with both queens failing but again in both hives at the same time, quite unlikely. Maybe one.

Could you have squashed a queen on inspections?

Could some one have stolen your queens?

Or a mix of two from the above?

What was the queen source? Home bred/caught swarms/ bought imported/bought locally reared?

I don't think your deluding yourself and the answer is perseverance.

Hope they get mated and good luck with it

[Patrick]

Hi CambsBK.

The Friday 19th was the start of a period of hot, still weather over the Easter weekend. I had looked at my bees the previous wednesday and clipped and marked queens, no queen cells. By the following Tuesday 23rd several of my colonies were preparing to swarm. None of them left (i.e. physically lose a large number of workers and queen) as all my queens were clipped and I have created some nucs and splits, but they would have given a chance.

Unless I missed something, you have QCs in both hives and no queens. I am afraid I would go for a simple answer to an issue of disappearing queens this time of year - they swarmed, despite your efforts. Unfortunately if the weather conditions are particularly favourable even if you have have done some swarm controls, they will sometimes still go. Everybody has things go wrong with swarm controls sometime. The fact that you have plenty of bees a week later is no indication they did not swarm - if Mrs Q. was laying 2000 eggs a day three weeks ago then 14,000 bees hypothetically might hatch in a week, making up the losses ( and providing plenty of bees for a first and further potential casts).

Its a bit of a crazy time and lots of things can occur. Such as... you physically remove the queen into a split, leaving a single prime cell in the other part and find the remaining workers bizarrely then break down the great cell and make rubbish emergency cells instead - infuriating! Always worth having some foil to hand to quickly wrap around the sides of queen cells (leaving the tip uncovered in the foil cylinder) to make sure it remains undamaged.

[AdamD]

With decent weather and good forage, it's the time for bees to think about swarming, so as you have queencells in the hives and no queens, then it's a fair assumption that the colonies have swarmed. As Patrick has suggested, after a few days, bee numbers will have increased enough to appear that the colony hasn't swarmed.
Swarms can go before a queencell is sealed.

I had a swarm this week as a result of my neglect. A single brood box and packed to the gills the week before with a note saying "needs more space" I didn't give it. I looked through the hive and it was bursting with bees a week on; found a few unsealed queencells and eggs so I destroyed the queencells. I couldn't find the queen but as each frame was dripping with bees I was not too surprised. Then my son arrived and asked me why there was a pile of bees on the ground (which I hadn't noticed). It was the swarm from the bursting hive with the marked and clipped queen clearly visible on the top.

[cambsbeekeep]

Chrissbarlow - thanks. To answer your questions, both queens were home-bred queens from a queen-raising apiary run by my local BKA which I help at, and only last year's queens. Nobody has accessed the garden whilst we were away, so no stealing of queens - they would be more likely to have stolen the two NUC boxes in the garden rather than go into a full hive and find a queen and steal her alone. Yes, it is always possible I crushed one of them during inspection although I run Commercial brood boxes and the shorted lugs and very careful handling of the frames each time make that a little less likely. One was not seen on 19th April inspection, but she had been there as plenty of eggs and larvae, but not now. I think it likely they have swarmed in my absence, although they have plenty of space in the brood boxes, two supers on - one not nearly full - and both swarmed together?? An ongoing puzzle!

[NigelP]

If the genetics of your bees is in any way similar to the local mongrels in my area (they are bi-annual swarmers) it doesn't matter what you do ....they will swarm. Room becomes irrelevant.

[Chrisbarlow]

If the genetics of your bees is in any way similar to the local mongrels in my area (they are bi-annual swarmers) it doesn't matter what you do ....they will swarm. Room becomes irrelevant.

I agree with Nigel 100%

[Patrick]

I agree some strains are inclined to be much more swarmy whatever.

Likewise less swarmy bees may go despite having adequate room. But they will go early if simply not given enough space and get congested.

This typically happens in spring with a single super on followed by a sudden warm spell with lots of new bees emerging. The answer is simple - put on two supers rather than one at a time.