Guilfordbeekeepers.org

For some background, I've been a beekeeper almost one year now and have just one hive in my back yard.

It is a pretty strong colony with plenty of bees. It has swarmed twice now (on 3/23 and again on 4/4). I've done a couple of inspections since the swarms and saw evidence of the queen cells. I assumed they were making a replacement queen for this colony. However, neither last week nor this week's inspections showed any eggs or larva and the capped brood has now all hatched. I couldn't find the queen after going through about 2/3 of the frames in the hive.

Requeening seems like the obvious solution. What I don't know is if I just missed the queen (or evidence thereof). How long can you afford to wait before you buy a new queen? And what happens if I introduce a new queen when another one is already in the hive?

I would really appreciate some advice.

John

John-gcba,
My second year was filled with swarms, I had fun catching my own swarms but very quickly wanted to be catching someone elses swarms and wanted my bees to stay put and make some honey.
I am following Walt Wright's checker boarding as best I can and things are going well so far. No swarms yet this year.
I have been seeing drones in my hives for about a week so it will take another 2 weeks for them to leave the hive and begin mating.

So if there is a virgin queen in your hive it will be at least another two weeks assuming everything is the same, for queen mating flights to be successful or for the queen to be mated well, meaning several or more drones.

And
IF the queen is not mated in some period of time when mating flights are started like 2-3 weeks the queen may never mate.

Well that was justification for my answer of Yes I would requeen, after doing a through check to find an existing queen and waiting another week to see if a mated queen shows up.

Buy a queen if you can find one or purchase a frame with eggs and insert it in the hive for the the workers to raise their own queen.

Why did they swarm? Honey bound, overcrowding,....Might need to solve that before requeening or they may issue another swarm.

If there is an existing queen and you introduce a new queen there could be fight and one or both may be injured.

I am sure there are different reasoning's and methods, these are just ones I have been taught and read about and somewhat experienced
Ski

Check your dates, ski....

swarmed 4/4...New queen emerged 4/5 to 4/7.
Mates 4/10- to 4/18
Starts laying 4/12 to 4/22.
Give her time. There have been drones flying in the area since 3/20/

I think I was in the ball park on dates. Today is 4/10
One more week would put it 4/17

"Well that was justification for my answer of Yes I would requeen, after doing a through check to find an existing queen and waiting another week to see if a mated queen shows up."

Drones in my hives are still inside walking around, I have not seen any flying yet but I was assuming everything was the same there as it is here. I was basing successful mating flights on my drone time frames.

I tried to answer too much at one time the simple answer would have been better. Give her more time.

Not sure if I am correct, as I did not go in the hive today, bu I may have had a swarm leave on Thursday.
Activity is low, compaired to the other day, but yesterday was cloudy and cool, and today was windy, and a bit cool, so I chose not to enter the hive. I was at the fire station on Thursday, and, as seems to be the case here lately, it was very nice. This queen was last years queen, and she was laying very well back in March. So, if they have swarmed, I will be requeening this hive, and perhaps get a second queen and do a split and just focus on getting two hives ready for fall, and give up on honey. This is my third year, and I hve not had a good honey year yet.

This beekeeping stuff is getting to be more agrivation than it is worth!