# Does adding a frame with eggs to a queenless hive usually work?



## MOBeeus (Jun 4, 2017)

It depends, lol.
It usually seems to work but I don't have that situation very often. It's the least intrusive and safest bet. As long as they have enough bees to tend the brood.


----------



## Kenww (Apr 14, 2013)

They have lots of bees and honey


----------



## Dave Burrup (Jul 22, 2008)

It usually works to get a queen hatched, but you still have to get her out on mating flight and then back in the hive. That is the risky part.


----------



## MOBeeus (Jun 4, 2017)

Dave, exactly right and it's time consuming. Upside is it's cheap. (unless it doesn't work)

Much easier to just buy a queen unless you have your own already mated.
I'm running nucs now and mini two frame mating nucs so I always have some resources available from my own making. Buying queens and packages kinda sucks.


----------



## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Everyone seems to want to caution others on Queen breeding like 9 out of ten queens do not make it back from breeding flights. The reality is the percentage of successful breeding flights is far greater than the failure. I run well above 95% successful mating returns and I don't think I am in the minority!


----------



## Kenww (Apr 14, 2013)

Thanks everyone! Tenbears that's good to hear! I was just looking into recombining the nuc with the old hive. I don't have any other resources. I was hoping to get both to survive. Also the old hive is making lots of honey without a queen. They aren't capping it. I'm not sure if that is because the keep moving it down or maybe it's too humid and the honey isn't drying?

I wouldn't mind buying a queen but I already lost one 50.00 queen. Also if there are queen cells and I buy a queen, one of the queens will die? It seems like some of the time they would both die? 

I thought about buying a queen cell or a frame of open brood for next week. Not sure if I can find any place that will sell one.


----------



## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

Tenbears said:


> Everyone seems to want to caution others on Queen breeding like 9 out of ten queens do not make it back from breeding flights. The reality is the percentage of successful breeding flights is far greater than the failure. I run well above 95% successful mating returns and I don't think I am in the minority!


You're right. I haven't had one fail yet. It could happen, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.


----------



## Kenww (Apr 14, 2013)

Thanks! I guess I'll leave it alone. I wish they'd cap the honey, so I could get some out of the hive. I added a 4th medium broodbox today. The third and 4th boxes have about 5 full frames in each. Only a little brood. There's a honey super on top that's half full.


----------



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Don't rush it. Check in a week, that frame of eggs, if NO queen cells started on it then put it back in and check back in 2 more weeks for eggs. If there IS queen cells started, then check back in 3 more weeks. Otherwise, don't disturb the hive. Trust the bees to do what they do.


----------



## MOBeeus (Jun 4, 2017)

I both agree and disagree with Ray. I agree on waiting a week to check for queen cells on the frame of brood. I think that's a good call.

I disagree with waiting a total of 6 weeks however to resolve a problem if it's not working itself out after the first week or two at most. After ten days you'll be getting into possible laying worker problems.
I'd wait a week with the frame of brood and then figure out something else.

Honestly I'd call Lappe's Bees in IA and get a new queen and have it in the box Tuesday for about $40 and then go through the hive and look for queen cells/queen and condense the boxes down to as few as possible with drawn comb and then leave a little expansion room and be done with it. It sucks worrying about it, sounds like a productive hive. I'd chalk the lost $50 queen up to experience and move on, no need of making two mistakes over regretting the first one.


----------



## Slow Drone (Apr 19, 2014)

MOBeeus Ray didn't say anything that adds up to 6 weeks his advice is spot on.


----------



## MOBeeus (Jun 4, 2017)

My mistake, I guess I misread what he said.

Matter of personal preference, I'd still disagree with waiting more than a week on a queen cell. Then again I'm already biased on the idea of just buying a queen and being done with it.


----------



## Kenww (Apr 14, 2013)

The adventure continues!

I was going to take two frames of uncapped honey from above the excluder until I discovered newly capped worker brood in the middle of a frame. I looked closer and found eggs a couple days old and every size larvae. Nice and neat. No empty cells. One per cell. I looked under the excluder and found eggs and larvae. I thought maybe laying workers, but it seems too perfect. Also I think it's too soon for them to be capping brood cells? I didn't move the old queen until 12 days ago.

Did I already have multiple queens? Maybe they were about to swarm when I moved the queen? Maybe I have a small queen that can go through the excluder or can fly in the top entrance? I use top and bottom entrances.

Since I had 40 mostly full frames, I did a split. One has ten medium frames of open brood and honey and ten frames mostly empty. The other has the equivalent of 30 medium frames of brood and honey and an empty super. I hope if there were two queens they didn't end up in the same hive. I didn't do an even split because I had put a 5 frame deep in the bottom two mediums. I couldn't find a medium nuc and I have all medium boxes. I put the hive with two mediums in the original location to gain some workers. The other is right beside it.

Should I have done anything differently? 

I'm hoping laying workers can't lay nice neat brood patterns with one egg per cell? Also the freshly capped brood was worker not drone.


----------



## Kenww (Apr 14, 2013)

Also I forgot to mention that the original queen was a big fat Italian. Pretty sure she didn't go through the excluder.


----------

