# Split refuses to initiate queenrearing... help me figure this one!



## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

simple the cells are not right....
Try aaian.. but do this 
Pick several of the larve that are teh right age, breck out the lower half of the cell they are in (without damaging the larve) so basicly they are hanging in space.... go all the way to the bottom of the cell or midrib as its sometimes called.

do 4- cells at least this way when the repair the cells they will make them queen cells.

Check out Mel Dissoloen at MDA splitter.com and his on the spot queen rearing....

It Works......been doing it for years now...


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## ClaudiaC (Aug 20, 2009)

Ben, I have the same thing with a hive here in Denver. It's interesting that you have the same thing. This hive hasn't had a queen for almost a month. The queen died in the weird weather. 

There is:
no brood
no queen
no laying worker
lots of honey
and relatively happy bees

They killed the last queen I tried to requeen with after greeting her. 

Any thoughts?


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

I have one I've been adding frames of eggs too for 2 months. No laying workers yet. They built queen cells the first 3 times I added frames. The frame 2 weeks ago they didn't build a cell. Added another last week. 
I can only guess my virgins aren't making it back from mating.

Hopefully I'll see eggs when I check them tomorrow.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Maybe there's no nectar flow, and do you have feeders on them?
We are after the summer solstice, it's harder to rear queens now in walk a way splits or emergency rearing. Make sure they have pollen and open nectar and a feeder. The problems now are robbing because of feeding in a dearth. Keep robber screens on and reduce entrances if the hive has low population.


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## Ross (Apr 30, 2003)

Maybe not enough bees. Feeding can help as well. Pack them down into a small nuc. Do you have drones?


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

That problem seems to be more prevelant this year. I can't say I have seen it this much before, and have no reasonable explanation. Women......


Roland


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## smith (Mar 7, 2009)

I'm with Roland. Colonies are losing queens, not raising their own replacements, and then refusing attempts to requeen. I'm going try to combine some smaller swarm colonies I collected that have pretty nice queens with some of my queenless colonies and see if I can get them through the winter. Real frustrating year.


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## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

Feeding: yes. Entrance reduced to one bee wide. We still have lots of drones or this would have been an even bigger fools' errand . Lots of bee bread, open nectar as well as capped stores.


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## ClaudiaC (Aug 20, 2009)

Have you tried dumping out the hive? It was something I'd thought of and talked about. When it was suggested yesterday, I went ahead and did it. I was surprised at how un-mad the bees were. 

I'm hopeful this will help my bees - but I'll let you know in about a week. I'm going to combine them with an other queen right hive.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

The last time I had a unit refuse cells and queens without starting its own cells, I eventually found a virgin with damaged wings.


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## terri lynn (Apr 5, 2009)

I'm having similar issues, but I saw the marked queens I bought last fall. Have had trouble with these 2 hives since early summer. Didn't find the queens so I thought they were absent and put in brood. (Didn't do anything to the cells since I hadn't heard of it). So they happily raised those brood frames, and now have none again. Also the only 2 hives that have very little honey, pollen or anything else. The 2 hives right beside them are booming, so there has been plenty to gather. I'm assuming now the queens are no longer fertile - after just a few months inch:, but why are they not collecting nectar, etc? They looked to be in good health and the numbers of bees were way up (thanks to the added frame I guess - though it seemed to be more bees than that). And if the queens were failing that bad, why wouldn't they have superceded her? Perhaps that is the cell issue. Before one had been laying a bad pattern of multiple eggs, so they had problems with these queens for a while, I just didn't see the one with the wierd laying. The second one was laying fine, just not very much and the hive was very small. 

What can I do now? It's too hot (100+ degrees) l'd think to order queens. If I try to give them a brood frame again (& I hate to keep robbing the other 2 hives), should I kill the queens first? Sure wish there was a place close enough to just pick up a couple of good queens.


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## bnatural (Aug 10, 2008)

TL, if there are queens present, then the bees may not start new queen cells, which sounds like it could be the case for these hives. If you want to try more frames of eggs and brood, I'd first off the queens or move them to nucs, or something else to get them and their pheromones out of the hives.

Here's a long shot:

Are they the same kind of queens as in your other hive and do you have a flow on? What I am getting at is, if your other hives are, say, Italians, and these hives are, say NWC, and, if you don't have much of a flow now (or the wrong combination of ages of bees, because of all the problems earlier), then the queens might just have shut down, is all. Like I wrote, a long shot.

Bill

p.s. For whom did you do lighting? Any good war stories?


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## ClaudiaC (Aug 20, 2009)

Terri,

Have you tried feeding the hives with 1) honey frames from the other hive, 2) sugar water + HGH, 3) pollen frames?

Sometimes factors can make a hive lose it's workers and there isn't enough food to make the queen lay.

I hate to mention this but you may be seeing early CCD - here's the FAQ sheet http://maarec.psu.edu/FAQ/FAQCCD.pdf (see early signs of CCD) I've had this exact situation in my hives but it lead to hive collapse.


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## terri lynn (Apr 5, 2009)

Thanks for the good responses. Claudia, I gave them some honey on a frame from the other hive with the brood, though at that time they did have more honey than they do now. Before the problem was bad laying patterns and what now has shown to be a no longer fertile queen in one, and in the other all was fine except there were only about 3 frames of bees and wouldn't grow. Now the 3-framer has a full deep box and the other no longer has bad laying pattern, but no pattern at all. Neither have much stores to speak of. They are at a remote location, so haven't fed otherwise. I read the link on CCD and thanks for that, it was extremely informative and info I needed. :thumbsup: But it seemed to make apparent that isn't the case - it kinda sounded opposite because I have a good work force now, but not much else. I'm pretty sure it isn't lack of food, because the others are thriving and they're beside a botanical garden in an area with lots of mesquite and wildflower - they have it all. 

Bill- I think you're right about my previous requeening effort. I guess the only option is to give it another shot and off the queens and fix the cells so they'll rebuild. They probably have the wrong combination of ages now, but the queens are the same as the 2 beside them that are thriving. I ordered all but one at the same time and they are all Italian.

Thanks for both of your input...I'll go tomorrow and try to give them new brood. And maybe add a very weak swarm of which I have 2, to each of them. So if anyone has further input tonight, I'll try to incorporate it! Maybe I should try to go ahead and feed anyway? Not sure if the flow is still on the others benefitted from, or not. How long would I need to feed?


t: (why is the off topic guy frowning?) And Bill, to answer your question, I worked at major venues with a variety of artists coming through, so I've done lighting for everyone from Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson to Wayne Newton, Mr. Mister and 'older' acts like the Gatlin Brothers, Willie Nelson and Restless Heart. Kinda the whole gamut at one time or another (started when I was 18). Even did the Lippazanner Horses. But it's been over 10 years now. But yes, I probably know enough 'war stories' to fill a book. Some people should be glad I know how to keep my mouth shut!


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## bnatural (Aug 10, 2008)

Do the swarms have queens? If so, then there's your answer. Pinch the problem queens and do a newspaper combine of the swarms with the hives. If they are not queenright, then add the brood frames.

I would feed, feed, feed, if they will take it. Also pollen patties, if you've got them.

Cool about the concert work.

Bill


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## terri lynn (Apr 5, 2009)

I'm not sure if the swarms have queens! :doh: They haven't been here too long and one swarmed again when I tried to combine the two, so I recaught it and gave it it's own home. It won't make the winter, so I'd planned on combining before then, after they had their own comb made, etc. But I haven't been messing with them too much until they got more stable, just mainly to feed and do quick checks. I haven't seen a queen, and they are just getting some wax for her to lay in.

So, yeah, I'll take your advice and combine with a brood frame, feed and I do have pollen patty mix. This is crazy, but what do I mix it with? It's MegaBee. I think it said fructose corn syrup (which I don't know where to find) or heavy syrup - is that just sugar syrup? At 1:1?


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## bnatural (Aug 10, 2008)

Yep, just mix it with enough syrup to make it into a patty. If they need it, they'll suck it right up.

I'm lazy these days and just buy the Global patties pre-made from BetterBee. Have three cases arriving next week, in fact, for fall feeding.

Bill


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## BeeAware (Mar 24, 2007)

If you have SHBs, the pollen patty is a bad idea. Better to feed pollen dry from outside the hive. Pollen patties were the main culprit in my own SHB infestation. Now I place the dry pollen substitute outside the hives in a small bucket which is laid on its side. This keeps the pollen dry, and the bees haul it to the hive.


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## terri lynn (Apr 5, 2009)

It said something about using normal dry feed methods, but of course not having done it, I didn't know what those methods were! Seems they could have given a little better directions all around for beginners. Thanks guys!


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## bnatural (Aug 10, 2008)

Ah, I use SBB, but don't have SHB up here (or wax moths), so don't have to deal with those issues. Learn something everyday.

Bill


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

there are a vareity of reasons A new queen isn't raised or a old queen slows or stops. Queens require a vertical cell, horizontal will not make a good queen and healthy hives won't even try.... so if larve is not avlible in a sutible cell the larve quickly gets too old and is not used. there are stories of eggs being moved, and of a worker laying a good egg for a queen but they are unusual.

Another issue is sometimes the queen is raised, but doesn't hatch/ doesn't return from mateing and leaves them queenless and with no eggs.

This year we have seen a HIGH number of queen falures and replacments all over the country poor weather and possibly other factors seem to be teh issue.

A queen will stop laying or lay poorly when weather or nectar/pollen flow trigger it. Many times feeding 1-1 will get her back on track.


If you do decide to pinch the queen, squeeze her abdomen until the spermatheca comes out. Its a tinnly little spere you wont crush with fingertips. Look and see if its clear or cloudy. clear indicates a queen out of sperm and unable to lay.... Cloudy says she was still okay and other factors were probably in play.


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## bnatural (Aug 10, 2008)

gmcharlie said:


> there are a vareity of reasons A new queen isn't raised or a old queen slows or stops.


Great point and why I like to catch her and put her in a nuc for a while before pinching. Ya never know what can happen.

Bill


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## Ross (Apr 30, 2003)

Quite often failure to thrive is just too few bees to get it going. They will sit with a palm sized patch of brood for months and just not get it going. It's not the queen's fault in most cases like this. Swapping them with a stronger hive, adding frames of brood and bees, or downsizing to a small nuc can all help them get it together. Too much space is not a good thing.


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