# Unmated queen behaviour



## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Unbread queens are generally smaller than a laying queen. often difficult for the untrained eye to spot. They tend to walk around the hive rather frantically and often walk over other bees. Bees do not really recognize them as queens as they produce insufficient pheromones. I do not usually see unbred queens looking in cells, that is more a newly bred thing, where the queen is looking for newly cleaned cells in which to lay.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>1. How does an unmated queen behave in the hive before her mating flight?

She is very runny and flighty. She scampers around, tries to stay out of the light and is likely to fly on you if provoked at all and maybe even unprovoked.

>2. Does she just wander around? 

Yes.

>3. How do the workers treat her while unmated?

Mostly they ignore her.

>4. Does an unmated queen look drastically different than a mated queen? 

She is almost 2/3 the size if that's what you mean. The proportions of her abdomen are much different as it is the same diameter at the anterior end and the same point at the posterior end but much shorter in length. This gives the impression of a dramatic taper and makes her abdomen appear more triangular.


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## StephenT (May 15, 2017)

Thanks for the quick replies friends! I went back in today to see if I could find her but couldn't. I wanted to pinch her. If she is in there, still unmated, and I add my mated queen tomorrow, will they accept my new queen?


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## WillH (Jun 25, 2010)

StephenT said:


> Thanks for the quick replies friends! I went back in today to see if I could find her but couldn't. I wanted to pinch her. If she is in there, still unmated, and I add my mated queen tomorrow, will they accept my new queen?


When did she emerge? if it is less than 10 days, she may be still going on mating flights. If you move the hive while she is out (midday), she won't be get back in the hive.


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## StephenT (May 15, 2017)

She emerged on the 12th. New queen will be here tomorrow. I wondered if they weren't pleased with her from the get go since they have already started new queen cells. Her cell was very small. Originally there were 6 or 7 queen cells but one by one they vanished until I saw this last queen emerge from the last cell on the 12th.


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## ronsmith9809 (Jul 26, 2015)

for one there should not have been any eggs that they could start new queen cells unless this was a superseager, and if it is you may still have the old queen and a new virgin queen in the hive, and with them still in the hive they will kill the new queen you just got, it might be best to start a new small nuc that you are sure there is no queen in to put your new queen into than combine the two when you are positive you have made the old hive queenless


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## StephenT (May 15, 2017)

I robbed the frame of eggs from my other hive since this hive had no brood what so ever left. Hasn't been a queen in this hive for over 2 weeks. She was marked so she was easy for me to find. Was worried about getting laying workers. But that's a good I idea with the nuc. May be a queen in there but i had to close it up. Had hive open longer than usual and robbers started showing up 😲


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

StephenT said:


> If she is in there, still unmated, and I add my mated queen tomorrow, will they accept my new queen?


Please DO NOT add the mated queen you receive in the mail into that hive until you have found and dispatched any and all other/virgin queens (there can be more than one). If the mated queen is released while the other queen is there, a battle will ensue and the virgin queen will likely win as she can bend her abdomen to sting more readily than a mated queen can.


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## PepperBeeMan (Apr 27, 2016)

Michael Bush said:


> >1. How does an unmated queen behave in the hive before her mating flight?
> 
> She is very runny and flighty. She scampers around, tries to stay out of the light and is likely to fly on you if provoked at all and maybe even unprovoked.
> 
> ...


So this perfectly describes a queen (except her general size) that I hived over a month ago. I inspected the hive at 1 wk. 2 wk. 3 wk. No brood. So, I bought a queen. She got out of queen cage. Think she was killed?

Why would a queen (unmated) stay in the hive and not go on her mating flight? How long does it take until she does it? Would a sudden dearth encourage her to hold off?


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

PepperBeeMan said:


> So this perfectly describes a queen (except her general size) that I hived over a month ago. I inspected the hive at 1 wk. 2 wk. 3 wk. No brood. So, I bought a queen. She got out of queen cage. Think she was killed?
> 
> Why would a queen (unmated) stay in the hive and not go on her mating flight? How long does it take until she does it? Would a sudden dearth encourage her to hold off?


Was your purchased queen marked with a color dot on her thorax so you will know her from the one they raised?

Virgin queens need a few days after emerging to harden up, and then they will go on a series of mating flights, finally settling down to laying eggs a few days later. Queens also have a 21 day window to get mated and start laying, so I always give my hive 35 days after I know she hatched before I call it a failure and buy another queen. Too often, I have gone in there with new queen in hand, and find eggs. As to what happened to your purchased queen, did the bees chew through the candy and release her? In my experience, I find that they will not chew through the candy plug if there is already a queen of any type in the hive.


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## PepperBeeMan (Apr 27, 2016)

I caught a swarm. She was the queen in the swarm. Im fairly sure she was the only one. It took many trips from tree to box to get them to stop returning to the tree. 

I wad able to stop the swarming by capturing her and turning a jar upside down over inner cover hole. She went down in hive with the rest of the swarm.

I did have a lot of bearding under hive (sbb) for 2 weeks. Maybe she returned but landed under hive? 

So after not finding brood, I bought a mated queen. I'm going to check for brood this weekend. (That will be 21 days from time I put queen cage in hive. I checked after 7 days to ensure release. )


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## PepperBeeMan (Apr 27, 2016)

This swarm is dwindling. It was massive when I homed it, taking up 1 deep 2 meds. It's now barely covering 1 deep. We are at 35 dat mark from when I caught swarm, so if no brood, I'm going to combine.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

PepperBeeMan said:


> I caught a swarm. She was the queen in the swarm. Im fairly sure she was the only one. It took many trips from tree to box to get them to stop returning to the tree.
> 
> I wad able to stop the swarming by capturing her and turning a jar upside down over inner cover hole. She went down in hive with the rest of the swarm.
> 
> ...


I did not realize this was not from the OP, but from another comment. Swarms can have either a mated queen or a virgin or multiple virgins. Your purchased queen should have started laying right away since she was already mated, so you could have seen eggs as early as 7 days after release. (she might have also taken off with a chunk of the swarm for another hive. That has happened to me before. I now add a frame of open brood to anchor the swarm to that box.)


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## StephenT (May 15, 2017)

Decided to run thru the hive one more time to see if I could find her majesty.... and I did

Really hate to pinch my first queen



photo upload and share


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

There could be more than one. Might be a good idea to watch Michael Palmers queenlessness video.
Queen in your picture looks unmated to me.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>If she is in there, still unmated, and I add my mated queen tomorrow, will they accept my new queen?

No. They will kill her.

>Why would a queen (unmated) stay in the hive and not go on her mating flight? How long does it take until she does it? Would a sudden dearth encourage her to hold off?

I see problems getting queens to fly in a dearth. I have to feed them (not much) to get them to fly. In mating nucs I just use a dixie cup squashed to fit between the frames and a tablespoon of syrup.


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