# Advice for the not-so-newbie, please? Queen dead (long)



## mustrum (May 14, 2009)

Hi, everyone. I have been a member of the homesteading forum for almost three years now, usually hanging out over on the goat and cattle boards. I am a newer beekeeper, got my first 4 hives in March, and up until now, everything seems to have gone really well...from package bees I have gotten all 4 colonies into 2 deeps, all filled with honey and brood to start the fall, and even re-queened with VSH Italian queens just before the fall nectar flow. Everything was going great, I felt like i learned a lot, and my cousin who keeps 20 hives and is the president of the local beekeeepers club felt I was doing everything right (or at least acceptably correct).

Just before re-queening, I noticed that one hive had become abnormally aggressive...and by that I mean that smoking did no good at all, that they would immediately start stinging my suit and face no matter how slow and gentle I was with them, and would follow me much farther than the other hives would. But since I had planned on re-queening anyway, I didn't worry too much about it, figuring that re-queening with a gentler queen would pretty much solve the problem in time.

We have had several warm days so far this winter and there hasn't been the die-off I expected, but i walk to the beeyard a couple times a week just to see what is going on with them...yesterday I noticed that the agressive hive was beginning to kick out the drones finally...i watched them for a while and looked at a few that had already been kicked out of the hive, and found the queen dead.

Since it was warm, I decided to take a quick look inside to see if they had somehow superseded or something...and paid for it dearly...even through my full bee suit and veil I got hit 23 times, and stopped counting the stingers in the suit at 300. Actually had to get on the 4-wheeler and drive through some cedar trees to get them off me so I could remove my suit...crazy.

I saw a very small amount of capped brood, 2 hive beetles, and a few drones. What I didn't see were any eggs, any uncapped brood, or any evidence of laying or queen activity. And where the other hives have full top deeps and well over half of the bottom deep still in honey, the aggressive and queenless hive has already gone through well over half the stores in both deeps, and their population doesn't seem to be shrinking as I thought it would.

From what I can see, unless I somehow find a queen somewhere (I have tried from NC to CA with no luck) and feed them a lot, this hive is pretty much doomed.

Now, I am wondering what those of you with more experience might do...would you try to save this hive, or just write it off, let it die out and put a new nuc or split in it come spring?

Should I let it die out naturally, and try to ensure that the comb is cleaned out as much as possible, or should I help the process along a little by increasing their exposure and forcing them to use up stores more quickly? I really worry about drones from this aggressive hive mating with my other hive queens sometime and making them all this aggressive and decreasing their ability to overwinter...and if I can't find another queen to somehow change their behavior, letting them die out seems best...

Sorry for my first post here being so long, but I wanted to provide as much detail as I could...

Joel


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

As far north as I am, it would be a doomed colony for me. Too late in the year to do anything. 

You shouldn't have to worry about drones passing on those genetics - they should be dead by spring mating season.


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## DanielY (Aug 25, 2011)

My first guess is that the entire problem was the hive getting robbed. Explains the dead queen as well as the aggression toward anything that approached the hive.

You can take what bees are left and combine them with another hive if you have them. Not sure what your stores or the bee population looks like now. Unless you requeen or combine you will just get laying workers.


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## mustrum (May 14, 2009)

Thanks for the replies! I pretty much figured this was a doomed colony...I haven't been able to find a queen, and I've called and left messages from North Carolina to California...really wish I could find one somewhere. And even if I did, the stores are so low I don't know if I could get them through even with feeding straight honey

As far as the robbing...maybe...but when I shut them down for the winter, they were full of stores, the queen had been accepted, and they were my strongest colony. With entrance reducer in place and as strong as they were, I wouldn't have thought they would have been vulnerable to being hit that hard. 

I thought about combining them, but if they are as unthrifty with stores as I think they are, then I would worry about them going through the stores of the remaining colonies and risking them as well.

Unless someone out there reading this has a queen they would sell (or even a nuc for me to combine with) for a premium price, then they are pretty much doomed...I wish I could save them, but I'm not going to risk what I have left.

I will pay absolute top dollar for a queen or nuc if anybody has one 

Thanks again for the replies, and for any suggestions anyone has...

Joel


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## mustrum (May 14, 2009)

OK, I found a queen...Gardner Apiaries out of Georgia has queens, and I got one from them...they are pretty close to me, so I don't have to worry too much about the weather (hopefully) since the weather is going to be hovering around 50 for us for the next week or so.

Plan is to make up some candy for feeding and offer some pollen patties as well when I introduce the queen to the hive...

I have a spacer placed just below a "quilt" like goes on a Warre type hive, so I have plenty of room just to lay the queen as well as the candy on the top bars...hopefully they will release her themselves and I won't have to worry about getting in there and releasing her and chilling the hive too much.

Anybody have any advice on what I can do to improve the chances of acceptance? This is the last chance for this hive...


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## bourbonred (Feb 27, 2008)

How did it go, mustrum?


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## mustrum (May 14, 2009)

Hi, bourbonred...

They killed the queen i put in there...ate the candy away, then killed her. i KNOW they don't have a queen in there, and it really wasn't long enough for them to develop laying workers since it was less than 72 hours from my finding the first queen dead outside the hive until introducing the new one...but they killed her too...

I don't know what is going on with this hive, but i am giving up on them. I have done all I can do for them, so they'll either make it or they won't. 

I have already got a full 10 frame hive ordered to start in the spring to replace them, and it will get to start on two full deeps of drawn comb, so they should do well.

I am NOT going to risk my other hives by possibly shorting their stores with unthrifty bees, and i don't want to introduce whatever craziness is going on with this hive to the others....

i'm going to take a couple frames out of the whole hive with uncapped brood and put it in a nuc with the bees on it and let them raise a queen and use the nuc as a queen holder / brood bank during the season, then let them build up enough in the fall to start a new colony...i figure with them and with splits in the fall, I can end up with 6 good hives for the year after next, and reduce swarming possibilities while i'm at it...

Joel


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## bourbonred (Feb 27, 2008)

Thanks for sharing your story. I'm still in the learning phase of bees and not yet in the doing phase and so I appreciate the opportunity to hear of others experiences. Every form of livestock has it's learning curve to master. Bees, I think, are no different. I'm hoping to keep learning and preparing over the winter and maybe make the transition this spring, We'll see.


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