I was able to get in to my hives yesterday to check for queen release. I hived these packages last sat. In one of my hives I found the queen and eggs on lightly drawn foundation. My other hive is a different story. The queen had been released but no sign of her. I did see where the colony had made a queen cell. It didn't have any jelly in it or egg.
What should I do next? How long do I have before having a possible laying worker issue?
Brian
First check for queen right of packages- no queen in one?
Re: First check for queen right of packages- no queen in one
You have a couple of options because you have two or more hives. One option is to give a close look tomorrow when the weather is going to be good for bee work again. If you do not see the queen or eggs, go to your other package hive, and being careful not to transfer your queen, take a frame that does have eggs on it and put it in your questionable hive. Remember where you placed this frame. Check that frame in 4 days to see if the bees have started making queen cells on it. You will want to carefully look at the opening of any queen cups to see if they have royal jelly (white in color) in them. If so, you can be pretty certain there is a larva sitting on the royal jelly.
This will buy you time and give you more options. The presence of the brood should stop any tendency to go laying worker. You can allow the process to continue if you want, and figure out timing by treating the frame transfer day as your grafting day using the queen rearing calendar we have links to in our "Just Stuff--Useful Information Links" section of the forum board. You can also see if you can order and introduce another queen. The frame you put in the questionable hive should give some boost to that package while you resolve the issue.
You can pull a "diagnostic" frame of eggs from any hive producing them. So, say if you caught a swarm and that queen has started laying, you could pull your eggs from that hive. Or if you wanted 2 hives only, were sure your package was queenless, AND your swarm queen was laying, you could do a newspaper combination placing the queenright hive on the bottom and the queenless one over it. Lots of options.
This will buy you time and give you more options. The presence of the brood should stop any tendency to go laying worker. You can allow the process to continue if you want, and figure out timing by treating the frame transfer day as your grafting day using the queen rearing calendar we have links to in our "Just Stuff--Useful Information Links" section of the forum board. You can also see if you can order and introduce another queen. The frame you put in the questionable hive should give some boost to that package while you resolve the issue.
You can pull a "diagnostic" frame of eggs from any hive producing them. So, say if you caught a swarm and that queen has started laying, you could pull your eggs from that hive. Or if you wanted 2 hives only, were sure your package was queenless, AND your swarm queen was laying, you could do a newspaper combination placing the queenright hive on the bottom and the queenless one over it. Lots of options.