# Dropped queen outside hive during inspection



## iivydriff (Apr 20, 2011)

i would wait a couple days and see if I could locate her in the hive. or Find new eggs then go from there. usually if they fall in the syrup they cant fly, but you said she was flying so she could make it back. My first question is what kind of feeder are you using that the queen wound up floating in it?


----------



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I'd say the chances she'll come back into her hive is better than 50%.

I would wait and inspect in four days. Look for eggs, if seen, she's back in. If queen cells, she's gone.


----------



## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

I'll add my novice advice. With 2 new packages, I doubt you have enough drones to mate with a newly hatched queen if the bees do raise their own. I know you will have some drones in the packages of bees, but it won't be many. 

If you see queen cells being made in 3 days, I'd order a new, mated, marked queen. If you can get the new queen before the queen cells hatch, I would remove the queen cells and install the new queen 24 hours later.

In the meantime, feed sugar water religiously so the bees will draw as much comb as possible.


----------



## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Iivydrift. You can figure it was a hive top feeder which the poster set aside to do the inspection!

You have a equal chance that the queen will make it back. in 3 days all the eggs within the hive will hatch, inspect the hive in 4 days, it you see eggs then it is a safe bet she made it home. If not I would just order a new queen. your new colony will take too much of a hit waiting to grow a new queen. why loose a months growth?


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

If you are trying to get a queen to return, the first thing to do is stand still. She will orient on you and probably find her way back. The second thing to do is encourage the bees to guide her back with Nasonov pheromone. To do this, take a frame out that is covered in bees and shake them back into the hive. This will cause them to start fanning Nasonov. Third, if you don’t see the queen fly back in (be watching and you may) then wait ten minutes with the cover of the hive off so she can smell the Nasonov. If you do these three things the odds are very good she will find her way back.

If you didn’t do those things, there is probably a little better than 50/50 chance she will find her way back anyway.


----------



## rsjohnson2u (Apr 23, 2012)

My first year beekeeping, I had a queen fall off (actually drip off in a ball of bees) from a frame outside the hive during an inspection. As I awkwardly scooped her off the ground, not easy with the thick cowhide gloves I used the first year, she fluttered over the back fence. I thought it might have been a drone flying out of the uncovered hive as I dropped her back in, but decided it was she after all. She did end up in the hive, one way or another. Unfortunately, she was never quite the same. I must have injured her. I saw her on subsequent inspections, but was never a good layer afterwards, and found her on the ground in front of the hive a couple of weeks later. A local old timer said he had bees kick out queens rather than ball them at times in years past. Hope your queen comes back


----------

