Subject: queenright?

From: Patrick M. O'Hearn <[email-masked]>
Date: 22 May 1995 15:34:27 GMT

Hello All,
	Yesterday I opened up a hive.   There were lots of bees 
busily working, tons of honey, but no brood, no eggs.  I found 
the remains of several supersedure cells but absolutely no 
brood...nada, zip, zero.  The hive didt act like it had lost its 
queen though, it was active, not really agressive, didnt have 
that listless feel to it.  On the odds that it was in fact 
without a queen, I rebuilt the hive as follows: (from the ground 
up) Old brood chamber 1, Old brood chamber 2, double screen board 
(aka Snellgrove board) with opening to back of hive, new brood 
chamber with 3 week old swarm and strong queen, queen excluder, 
newspaper, honey supers with most of  the old bees shaken out.  
My thoughts were to wait a week and see if the lower hive had a 
new queen that just hadnt started laying yet before I combined 
the two hives.	All this leads to three questions:
1.  What are the odds that a hive totally bereft of  brood has a 
sucessful supersedure queen that just hasnt started laying yet?  
And, how long should I give her to show signs of laying.
2.  If the old colony is in fact queenless (as I suspect), will 
the strong queen above the screenboard give off enough “queen 
substance” to suppress any laying workers (which I dont have now) 
until I unite the hives.
3.  Am I overthinking this and should I just combine the two 
without all this fiddling around.
Thanks for any input in this matter  Patrick O'Hearn, Aztec NM

-- 
Patrick M. O'Hearn, [email-masked]
Bears Choice Apiary  "sometimes you get shown the light in the
Aztec, New Mexico     strangest of places, if you look at it 
                      right" R. Hunter

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From: "K.J.M.Hooker" <[email-masked]>
Date: 25 May 1995 10:22:51 +0100

You give a number of pointers to the state of your hive but do not 
mention SOUND.  Listness, running etc can be genetic but a colony that 
is happy will sound happy, one with problems has a higher pitch and one 
that is definately unhappy....

If the colony has a virgin or mated queen that is not laying it will 
sound reasonably happy, you could always place a frame of 
healthy eggs/young larva into it and monitor the reaction.

Keith JM Hooker BA MIPD
Technology Management Ltd
Whitstable, Kent, UK, EC (just)