# no sign of queen in new warre 16 days.



## Ryan McEachern (Dec 18, 2011)

We are set to have a very nice stretch of weather this week coming up in Vancouver Area. Do a hive inspection on next Saturday, and if you are still not seeing signs, then take some good photos and post them here. There isn't much to do right to fix it right at the moment if your queen isn't laying properly, so just sit back and relax and enjoy watching your bees coming in and out as they hit the new dandelions and the cherry blossoms and the maples and everything else we will be enjoying next week.

(I bet everything is fine.)


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## SWBeeCee (Mar 10, 2016)

Thank you for the advice. We will definitely do that. We've been out watching the hive today and the there is a LOT of flying going on. The drones are going out as well taking flight. Everything seems normal so we will hope for a good egg laying queen to surface soon.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

What day was the queen release from her cage? Did you direct release of did the bees let her out. If it took 3 days for the release then she has been free for over 12 days Give her 3 more to get comfortable and begin to lay. That would be 10 day laying, by now you should begin to have capped brood. I would look the frames over closely for eggs at least. but you should have brood in varying stages.


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## SWBeeCee (Mar 10, 2016)

The attached pictures are from 4 days ago, 12 days after the queen was released into the hive. The hive had no comb just bare wood bars. We released the queen 2 and half days after install when we had a break in the stormy weather. The bees just about ate their way through the candy, they only had about 1/4 inch to go through to release the queen. The day we added the second box we cleaned the floor of dead bees and dust from the installation package, during that time we did not see any sign of the queen living or dead. Today we looked to see if we could find any sign of queen and didn't. We suspected that now that there seems to be enough comb the queen should have at least layed some eggs but we didn't see any, perhaps we missed them. We didn't take any pictures today. The next time we look we plan to take pictures to cross reference. We are a little worried about the queen but we are hoping that it's just because there was no comb in the beginning that she is a little slower to start laying eggs.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Usually the queen will lay in the center of the first available comb. I have seen many packages introduced into new equipment where the workers could not keep up with her. However eggs can be very difficult to see, Particularly in new comb. Look it over good and see if they are not there if not I would watch them closely two weeks should be plenty of time for her to get going.


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## SWBeeCee (Mar 10, 2016)

Thanks for the replies.
The bees are very busy today bringing in pollen and nectar, we even noticed some drones leave for a flight and saw some return later. Looks like we are going to have some decent weather for the next couple days. We didn't want to open the hive today but we plan to look inside the hive again tomorrow or Wednesday in the sunshine. Hopefully we will find the queen and sign of brood. The bees do not seem agitated or disorganized nor do they seem abnormally loud (they actually seem kind of quiet and peaceful) but this is our first hive so we really have no personal experience to reference.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

I would like to suggest that you are over inspecting, which in a Warre is more intrusive than in a framed hive. You are seeing in going pollen and normal flight behavior which for me is all I need to know.


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## SWBeeCee (Mar 10, 2016)

Today we checked the hive just to see if we could see her and we are pretty sure we found the queen. She was moving around so, unfortunately, we didn't catch her in any of the pictures we took. The nectar was really glistening in the sunshine and there seemed to be plenty of pollen. The comb is growing at a good pace but still no sign of larva or eggs that we could see. We agree with you odfrank and feel we are over inspecting as well, so we will be leaving the hive now for awhile. Hopefully the next time we inspect we will find capped brood, larva and eggs.


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## SWBeeCee (Mar 10, 2016)

Today outside the hive. The weather this week has been great and the bees have been very active. We were watching the bees at various times today and saw lots of comings and goings. Most of the bees returning didn't seem to have any pollen but there _were_ still bees bringing in pollen the drones were going out flying too. It seems everything is normal at the hive entrance.


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