# Queenless split...your opinoin on my options



## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

> Your thoughts and advice appreciated. My mentor suggest just waiting for the queen cells to mature.


Sounds like good advice to me. It's still early in the season. One consideration might be whether or not you have AHB in the area and whether or not it would be better to re-queen with known genetics.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>One question...if they have a frame of open brood and have made an emergency queen cell, do I still have to worry about laying workers?

Not if things go well and the queen gets mated and laying on time.

> If so, what happens when the queen emerges? 

There will be no laying worker issues when the queen emerges.

>1. Wait and allow the queen cells to emerge and the hive become queenright.

That's my choice.

>2. Buy a new queen immediately and get her introduced. I assume i would destroy the emergency cells if i do this.

My recent experience with purchased queens is that the best you can hope for is that she will just start to lay and then they will supersede her and you will still have to wait for them to raise a new queen.

>3. Combine the two hives with newspaper.

Why?


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Michael Bush said:


> My recent experience with purchased queens is that the best you can hope for is that she will just start to lay and then they will supersede her and you will still have to wait for them to raise a new queen.


Wow, that sounds bad. I bought 20 queens from Wilbanks and introduced them on April 3 - right now they are all fine. Laying like crazy actually. The same queens that come in their packages no less. When do you think they will start to be superceded?


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## gezellig (Jun 11, 2014)

Package queens do seem to be superceded quickly. But I haven't had the same problem with introducing single queens. Queens from Dan Williams in Ohio are superb! Bought from him last year, still have same queens laying gangbusters in the hives with green dot still on their back. Since you have the one hive that is doing great now, you could introduce another frame of brood a week after the first just to have the brood pheromone in the hive which will suppress laying workers.


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## TurnTex (Mar 6, 2015)

Thank you, everyone. I am patient and willing to wait, I was just concerned about laying workers since the hive has been queenless for 35 days or so thus far. If the new queen will take care of any laying worker issue (if any) when she emerges, then I am fine waiting. I was mainly worried about laying workers developing since it will be quite a while since that hive had a queen.

BadBeeKeeper, yes we have AHB here. It is just part of life! As a matter of fact, a fellow beek in our club has 2 year old hive that has most likely gone AHB and is meaner than hell. He is scared of them so he is giving the entire colony to me. I am going to try to re-queen it or split it or may just end up killing the whole thing. These bees will "swarm" you and follow you to the road in mass. I went over yesterday just to put a new top on it since the one he has is not secure enough for moving them. Just taking the top off (with smoke) got them boiling out the front and "swarming" us.

Michael, thanks for the confirmation. I have looked for multiple eggs and other evidence of laying workers. I have not even seen any eggs at all. However, I was thinking that it has been long enough that laying workers could be an issue. Just to clarify, are you saying that if I do have some laying workers that I have missed, as soon as the queen emerges, she will take care of that issue? Also, the newspaper combine was based on a recommendation frequently posted on here from one of the members in queen issue threads.

Thank you all for commenting. I sincerely appreciate it.


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## psfred (Jul 16, 2011)

If they started queen cells you don't have laying workers. Laying worker hives have to be suppressed before they start queen cells because the laying workers make enough mandibular pheromone that the rest of the bees think the have a queen.

You should be fine. If you think the population is getting too low, take another frame of emerging brood (and make sure your queen in that hive is NOT on the frame!) and move it over to the hive raising a queen to keep them from going too low on bees.

With emergency cells in the hive, they will never accept another queen, I'd not bother to try. Too expensive to let them kill her pronto, which they will with queen cells of their own.

Peter


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## TurnTex (Mar 6, 2015)

Thank you Peter for the precise answer regarding the fact that emergency queen cells means there is not any laying workers. I was not aware of that and just assume they could still be doing it. Have decided to give it a go and let them do their thing. I will keep an eye on the population and swap a frame from another hive as necessary.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>When do you think they will start to be superceded?

Usually quickly, so you seem to be doing well. The next test will be winter.


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## jadebees (May 9, 2013)

Here's a way to use an eeevil hive as a resource.
Get boxes for doing splits or nucs. Estimate how many nucs you can make with the frames in your nasty hive, then order that number of queens. You write off nasty hive and make the whole thing into nucleus hives. Kill the mean queen if you can, but dont worry if you can't. In a few days it will be obvious which box she is in. The new queen may kill her or not. But at worse you lose 1 queen. And you gain 3 or 4 good new hives. AHB will (fiercely!) care for their new queens, while she lays their replacements.
Some AHB are not good for anything else. They just make swarms that fly off. I have had usurped hives make 8 or 10 swarms. They LOOK big but work all summer just making swarms. By winter they are small again.
But they'll breed you lots of nice splits all summer. You just have to do it.


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