# Queen Bee dead in Winter



## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Your first post - so a warm welcome to BeeSource ...

A couple of questions to clarify the situation: whereabouts in the northern hemisphere are you located ? And - seeing as it's more-or-less mid-Winter right now, on what basis are you concluding that the Queen is dead/ missing ?
'best,
LJ


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Curing a laying worker situation may take three donations of brood frames a week apart. Not as quick, easy or guaranteed as you suggest.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Hi there Drone74, welcome to Beesource. LJ's question is one I would be asking. Unless you know you killed her, what leads you to believe she is dead? I would not combine. As long as it is winter, the hive should not go LW. Please list your location. Here in Richmond , VA, I can expect to start seeing small amounts of brood in a few weeks. Enough that on a warm day, I could steal some eggs if forced to do so. If the hive does go laying worker, providing frames of open brood, even multiple times, is no sure bet. Maybe 50/50 at best.


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## drone74 (Dec 22, 2019)

I live in North Carolina, US. 

For whatever reason, the bees were balling her- I found them out on the ground right next to the hive.... I had to run off to another commitment right before I discovered this, so I was not sure what to do, so for better or worse (assuming worse), I put her back in the hive. She might be alive, but it has been too cold to check the last couple days, so I am assuming the worst. I did not find her body outside the hive, so maybe she is not dead, but seeing that she was getting balled, I figure they were going to kill her. I was hoping I was wrong, but I didn't have much time to make a decision. 

I have dealt with laying workers before, but I realize that first time might have gone more smoothly than it might go in other cases.

Thanks for the welcomes


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I'm with the others it is hard to diagnose queenlessness during broodless times.

If they were balling her outside and you ran her in with some smoke she may still be alive, but there are a number of scenarios she may not even be from that hive, or there may be more than one queen.

Only sure way to test the waters is put some eggs in and see if they make queen cells.

If you definately want a queen, some breeders end up with some spare in fall and may bank them or have in mini nucs or similar, if you ask around you may find someone willing to supply.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Around the middle of January you may be able to test the waters and add the small brood patch that should be on one of your frames in another hive. Just be sure to shake off all the bees. Don't want to accidentally move a queen into a hive that already has one! I have never tried it this early and of course the queen won't get mated, but at least you will know your status.


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## drone74 (Dec 22, 2019)

Thanks for your advice, guys. It makes sense to drop a frame of eggs/brood in there, so I think I will try that route. If there are any other thoughts on this matter, please share.

Oh yeah, so you were also saying that in winter they won't go laying worker? That is good to know. I guess that makes sense too b/c they are not expecting the smell/pheromone from the open brood at this time ..?


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Oldtimer said:


> If you definately want a queen, some breeders end up with some spare in fall and may bank them or have in mini nucs or similar, if you ask around you may find someone willing to supply.


I think that's something well worth considering - also the local beekeeping club ? I currently have half a dozen spare queens surplus to immediate requirements which are being over-wintered in nucs, and I certainly won't be the only sideliner doing this sort of thing ...
LJ


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

drone74 said:


> Thanks for your advice, guys. It makes sense to drop a frame of eggs/brood in there, so I think I will try that route. If there are any other thoughts on this matter, please share.


Just, as per others, if they do build queen cells, don't let them hatch. It won't mate and could be trouble later.



drone74 said:


> Oh yeah, so you were also saying that in winter they won't go laying worker? That is good to know. I guess that makes sense too b/c they are not expecting the smell/pheromone from the open brood at this time ..?


But early spring they may well. A good proportion of hives that go queenless in winter go laying worker by normal requeening time in spring.


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## drone74 (Dec 22, 2019)

So I should find out if they have a queen around mid-January by testing with some brood and re-queen with mated queen if possible immediately after the test for best results sounds like what you all are saying. 

Just curious, what wrong might happen if a queen hatched now (re:"It won't mate and could be trouble later.") ? Is it that it might never attempt to mate come springtime?


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Her window to mate is up to 21 days after emergence. Since there will be no drones for her to mate with, she will become a drone layer. You would have to hunt her down and kill her to be able to install a mated queen a day or two later. So, give the bees a few eggs and check back in about 8 days to see if they made queen cells. If so, tear them down and start looking for a mated queen with a local or southern breeder/sideliner.

It is always a good idea to have a nuc for every two or three hives you have going into winter. Like LJ, I am overwintering six nucs in addition to around 18 hives at the moment. The queens I don't need myself will get sold off with their respective nuc at the end of March.


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## drone74 (Dec 22, 2019)

Huh, so once a drone layer there is no going back; she just settles into her routine of laying. I was not aware of that window to mate although the number 21 looks familiar... maybe I knew but just forgot  Thanks for the info. I will start checking around to see if people have queens just in case. Thanks everyone for the help and info!


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## Robert Holcombe (Oct 10, 2019)

Some backup data as I was just reading about Queen Maturation. It takes 6 to 10 days after emergence for a queen to be ready to mate ( apparently influenced somewhat by age of workers). 20C ( 68F) and higher temperatures are needed for flight and mating along with some sun and mature drones. Queens can mate 3 to 4 weeks after emerging. Depending on race the queens begin producing eggs 30 to 40 days after emergence ( thus preventing mating??). Thus a drone laying queen results when not mated. It is recommended to replace a queen if she has not mated by 3 weeks after emergence ( 37 days) to avoid drone laying queens. 

Drone laying workers show up, ovipositing, 40 days after loss of a queen. I assume this includes the 14 -16 days for brood development - true? If a colony generated queen mates and returns, 4 to 6 days after drone laying worker ovipositing begins, what happens? Civil War? Timing of when a mated queen is installed is also important if the time delay is too long. I think I need to reread with a different viewpoint. Easy way out is to install brood frames when in doubt and change the timetable for for drone layers - right or maybe? Maybe is for a drone laying queen?

The more one learns about honey bees the more complicated it gets. What if flow diagrams?


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## Steve in PA (Jan 26, 2015)

drone74 said:


> Huh, so once a drone layer there is no going back;


That is incorrect. Look for threads about a Screen Combine by Flower Planter on here. I've done it with success. I don't think you need to worry about a combine right now, just get them through winter alive then worry about the queen situation in early spring when you are sure what the situation is.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

If you decide you do need a queen, then try 
https://www.ohbees.com/products/ohb-italian-queens 

as I think they will be able to fix you up. They are a major breeder here in Northern CA and also have operations in Hawaii. They currently show Italian queens available on January 6th and onward.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Steve in PA said:


> That is incorrect. Look for threads about a Screen Combine by Flower Planter on here. I've done it with success. I don't think you need to worry about a combine right now, just get them through winter alive then worry about the queen situation in early spring when you are sure what the situation is.


I am guessing he meant that once a queen has become a drone layer due to failing to mate, that, that window is forever closed. I believe it has been done deliberately to produce oodles of drones though!

I had a colony come out of winter queenless this past season. I kept feeding in brood comb from another hive. They started cells but since there were no drones yet any resulting queens would be less than worthless. I think I tore down cells twice but let one emerge from the third donated frame. A queen finally emerged June 10. She did lay but I suspected she was not really royally mated as drones were still quite scarce so I replace her later. 

It was an exercise just to see if I could do it but really not practical. I should have combined but I did no know at that point if I was entirely over European foulbrood. Combining a weak hive with another can be very bad business sometimes.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

drone74 said:


> For whatever reason, the bees were balling her- I found them out on the ground right next to the hive....


I doubt you are queen less in December based upon that, it would be very unusual for a colony to kick out & ball there only queen. More likely, they had two queens going into Winter & one was being removed. Oldtimer pointed this out & some other scenarios.


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## drone74 (Dec 22, 2019)

Robert Holcombe said:


> The more one learns about honey bees the more complicated it gets.


You aren't kidding!

Thanks to everyone for the replies and ideas. I will have to make sure that there is no queen and then re-queen if none exists.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

it won't be too many more weeks before the early tree pollens start coming in on the exceptionally warm days. 

if your supposedly queenright hive has a lot of pollen coming in and your suspected queenless hive does not then that is sometimes a clue there is no queen present.

another clue would be seeing robbing of the suspected queenless hive.

i personally would not bother with inspections until the first tree pollens start coming in, which is typically when the first rounds of post-solstice brood are reared.


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## tacomabees (May 2, 2013)

drone74 said:


> Hi All, I have a hive that just lost its queen. It is a very strong hive- they are doing great with the huge exception of having just lost their queen. I figure I cannot re-queen in the winter b/c no one is selling queens now I assume. I have one weaker hive that still has their queen.. should I just join the 2? Should I wait it out until late winter when I can purchase a queen? I figure I will have laying workers soon enough, but figure I could just drop in a frame of brood to fix that in the spring... but not sure if waiting around with laying workers would cause issues other than the obvious slowly declining population. However, I figure it would be best to hear from other people who know more before I make any decisions.
> 
> Thanks in advance.


It's far, but queens are available year round they claim...Hawaii https://www.ohbees.com/collections/big-island-queens


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## drummerboy (Dec 11, 2015)

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> I doubt you are queen less in December based upon that, it would be very unusual for a colony to kick out & ball there only queen. More likely, they had two queens going into Winter & one was being removed. Oldtimer pointed this out & some other scenarios.



Yeah, this is the direction I'm leaning too. As bees naturally die off over winter, decreasing cluster size, another queen might not be tolerated as it was back in September, and it is highly unlikely that the colony would kill off its only Mama.

It is December after all, just 3 days passed the solstice and even Virginia still has plenty of winter left before Spring arrives, no?


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

drummerboy said:


> It is December after all, just 3 days passed the solstice and even Virginia still has plenty of winter left before Spring arrives, no?


Yep, down here we have another 8-10 weeks to go. Heck, the coldest part hasn't even gotten here yet.


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## gnor (Jun 3, 2015)

I'm thinking in North Carolina, your colonies may never go entirely broodless. Even in Nova Scotia here they are starting to rear brood in January.
I would wait a week or so for a nice day and look for uncapped brood. If there isn't any, you may not have a queen, or you may have a failing queen.
At that point you can always combine them and make a good strong split in the Spring. The worst that can happen is they fight it out.
Plan B: combine them with newspaper, plus a queen excluder. Once you see drones, move some eggs up and they should make a new queen in the top box.


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## Rhop (Sep 13, 2018)

Location is key to finding a solution here. I still have lots of brood and a decent drone population in North Florida.


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## Beeverton (Nov 6, 2016)

To produce a queen in the spring you're going to need a population of mature drones which takes about 45 days from the egg. Also, queens typically don't fly and mate below 68 degrees. Without these two conditions you will not get a well-mated queen in the spring . I have successfully used QMP strips (available from suppliers) as a substitute for the queen for short periods of time (2weeks). This may be worth trying. You could also try placing the weaker colony on top of the suspected queenless colony with a single screen (#10 mesh) between the two, and create an upper entrance above facing the opposite direction. This would allow the queen pheromones to be transferred by contact between the workers but would not let them access the queen physically and possibly kill her (if the other queen was still present below). The heat rising off of the larger colony (below) would help the weaker colony (above) survive through the winter. They can be permanently combined in the spring, if required, but if both queens are present and healthy, they can be separated again. I regularly overwinter nucs on top of full colonies using this method.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

here in Hampton Roads part of Virginia, the queens have picked back up again. Just did an inspection on my long langstroth. The queen has about 5 frames laid with eggs at the top. So far, our January is looking pretty mild, although that always tends to change. But I am seeing pollen being brought in as well as uncapped nectar, so they are finding some natural food somewhere. Depending on what part of NC the OP is in, the queens should be starting a patch or two of brood now.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Ruth, that is good to know. I have not pulled frames since October. If you are seeing eggs and brood already, I need to get the pollen patties on this weekend. Ah, nothing like 60° weather to make one forget it is winter.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

JWPalmer said:


> Ruth, that is good to know. I have not pulled frames since October. If you are seeing eggs and brood already, I need to get the pollen patties on this weekend. Ah, nothing like 60° weather to make one forget it is winter.


Are you on FB? I posted a video on the Virginia Beekeepers page, if you are. Beautiful tiger striped queen. My bees are ignoring the pollen sub that I bought from Tractor Supply, but others in Lynchburg are showing the bees all over the pollen sub.

I wouldn't normally go in mine just yet, but have a mentee that wasn't sure if her bees went into winter with an unmated queen, as she couldn't see eggs. I told her mine normally pick up after the winter solstice, and this gal was right on target. Didn't see any open brood, only frames and frames of eggs.


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## drone74 (Dec 22, 2019)

UPDATE:

I was able to go into the hive today and found that the strong hive had their queen which means I put the queen that was getting balled into the wrong hive.. I am currently looking for a queen for the other hive (checked and no brood or eggs etc)- will check locally first and then check the links in this post . Ug.... at least the strong hive will remain strong... 

The strong hive has been gathering a lot of nectar.. I suppose it has been warm, but I am wondering where they are getting nectar so early? They are also bringing in a good amount of pollen and have a good amount of brood. I am hoping they don't build up too quickly and then get crushed by a quick freeze...

Thanks for everyone's help and responses.


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## Richinbama (Jan 15, 2018)

What about combining them. You may find a queen local. I'd not trust shipping one in at the start of winter. Also, feed them well in early spring, and check on what they have now. If brooding, they will burn some resources up fast.


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## HaplozygousNut (Dec 30, 2015)

drone74 said:


> I live in North Carolina, US.
> 
> For whatever reason, the bees were balling her- I found them out on the ground right next to the hive.... I had to run off to another commitment right before I discovered this, so I was not sure what to do, so for better or worse (assuming worse), I put her back in the hive. She might be alive, but it has been too cold to check the last couple days, so I am assuming the worst. I did not find her body outside the hive, so maybe she is not dead, but seeing that she was getting balled, I figure they were going to kill her. I was hoping I was wrong, but I didn't have much time to make a decision.
> 
> ...


It may be that your colony was in the process of re-queening, but they have balled the virgin queen after coming back from her flight. It is odd to me that this has happened to you during December, usually it is February with the Red maples blooming that the colonies will supersede. We do have henbit and dandelions blooming through winter, but I don't notice a very strong nectar flow from our colonies here in North Carolina at the moment. Our colonies do have a moderate amount of drones though so there could be a light nectar going on even during mid-winter. 

I have had virgin queens balled by their own colony when I split one year in Spring during March and the splits were so small they were not able to forage in the cooler Spring weather. While the booming colonies were brooding much from the nectar, at the same time the small splits (around 3 frames total each split) seemed were not getting any nectar and was as if they were in a dearth of nectar even though it was Spring. The little splits went queenless, and one queen I saw was outside of the hive still alive but torn up by the workers (I saw this queen days before in the nucleus hive). The small splits wound up queenless. I have this same problem during the summer dearth here in North Carolina. The bees will ball the queen during the summer dearth every time if the split was a large and strong colony, though small splits mate their queens consistently even during the summer dearth, as long as you can keep them alive in the stressful time of the hot summer dearth (I feed sugar syrup if splitting in the dearth). 


Welcome to this forum!


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## drone74 (Dec 22, 2019)

Final Update:

So, on the 6th of January I ordered a queen from Hawaii from Ohbees after not finding any queens locally. I got the queen in the mail on the 9th. The Queen and workers were all torpid so I breathed on them to get them warmed up and going, then got them in the hive once they were moving and warmed up- fortunately the temperature was in the low 50s. I planned to check to see if the queen was ok a few days later. On the same day I was planning to check the queen, I got a text from a friend I buy bees stuff from saying he had a runaway queen and was asking if I needed or wanted it.. I told him I would let him know if I needed it after I checked on my new queen... and guess what? The new queen was dead in the queen cage when I checked!!! The other bees were gone from the cage. I drove to my friends house and picked up the queen and put her in the hive that same day. 

I checked a week later and the queen was out of the cage. I waited until today to do a check for brood to see if the queen was still alive (was too cold any other day I was available to check). There is brood and the queen was looking good and the hive is pretty active. The hive is small but I am hoping they will make it. I am going to make some sugar candy today b/c stores are a bit low. I was going to give them a frame of honey from the other hive but they are very active and have a lot of brood, and have consequently ran through most of their stores. I have to feed them also... not exactly comfortable with all the brood so early on...

One thing I noticed in the big hive is that they are bringing in a decent amount of nectar. I assume it is from the maples. 

One other thing I wanted to say is that OhBees has excellent customer service, so even though the queen died (which they refunded), I highly recommend them. I figure it was just a rough trip for the queen and it was a bit too cold.

Thanks everyone for the help!


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

It appears to be working out, glad to hear it. Good luck with your hives this year.


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