It is a lovely day here and I have just been to visit my one remaining colony hoping to find evidence of a laying Queen.
Well, I now know what frames are meant to feel like that are full of honey, as the bees have so far taken down about 10Kg of the sugar I have been feeding them. I’m not sure what my bees have been living on all Summer.
Due to the weight and my lack of strength, it was a struggle to hold the frames high with the sun behind me as I looked for eggs and larvae. I could see neither. This leads to the following possible scenarios:
- There is no Queen
- There is an unfertilised Queen
- There is a fertilised Queen but she’s not laying at the moment
I have left a message with a local Queen maker. So hopefully he has a spare one and then I’ll have to learn how to re-queen a hive. I am a bit worried that if it is scenario 2, the unfertilised/resident Queen will kill a new Queen. I’ll discuss this with the Queen Bee Man.
Postscript: To see what happened after phoning the Queen Bee Man please read Giving My New Queen Bee A “Good Home”.
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Early in the season I have oftentimes had virgin queens in my swarm traps. It will take them a while to get things going with eggs, but we should be past that now. This is bad news at this time of year. Good luck.
10KG of sugar Wow… that’s a bunch.
Good luck!