Hive Problems Year 1: Queen Problems

The hive lives or dies by the strength of the queen bee. Her genetics, her behavior, even how well she was bred, all determine the success or failure of the beehive.

Sometimes the queen fails and we have to face one of the hardest parts of beekeeping. Determining if it is time to requeen the hive. Or, how to help your beehive recover after a swarm, or poor brood patterns.

To Kill a Queen Cell or Not to Kill a Queen Cell

This is the biggest controversy we have ever found. Even asking other beekeepers this question can cause heated arguments. This section will be 100% John and my experience. It can contradict what other beekeepers know as ‘truth’, 100%. You will need to make up your own opinions on whether to kill, not kill, or harvest queen cells.

Queen Cups. These looks exactly like that, a little cup near the bottom of the frame. Check inside. If there is no larva in it, then break the cup, but do not stress. Queen cups mean nothing.

After 13 years of being beekeepers John and I have come to the conclusion that if we see a capped queen cell then the queen is gone, the swarm has happened. Even if you see a lot of bees, you probably will not find the queen. If you find the queen and do nothing, she will be gone next time you return to the hive.

Facts:

The old queen that leaves with the swarm.
A virgin stays with the old hive, and some of the bees.
A hive can swarm several times in a row
There is a difference between supersedure and emergency cells

If you kill the queen cell then the odds are you have killed the hive. There will not be any queen in the hive. In about four weeks there will not be any bees in the hive.

Will Nucs or New Hives Swarm?

Yes. If your hive swarms then you will go into the fall with a weakened hive. Even if it is your first year, make sure that you are preventing a swarm in July and August.

June is swarming season in our area of Ontario. But we have had bees swarm as late as the end of August. The interesting thing is that we have seen weak hives swarm. This is always a problem with new queens. They are most likely to swarm.

Overwintered queens are less likely to swarm, but they also have been laying for a few months. A queen has only so many eggs. If you bought a post solstice, overwintered queen, you can expect to get one year out of her, but I would requeen her in year two.

Why do Nucs or young colonies Supersede new queens?

This is something that I am just learning. I see far less supersedure cells in hives that are fed and warm than I do in hives that are just left to ‘go their own.’

If I do see supersedure cells, I look for a few things:
Did I kill the queen in the last inspection?
Are the nurse bees cannibalizing the brood, and then blaming the failing hive on the queen?
Is this a true supersedure cell, or is the hive thinking of swarming?
Has the hive already swarmed?
If none of the above, I will requeen the hive.

It is impossible for me to tell you exactly why a new hive will superceed a queen, or why a hive that isn’t strong will feel the urge to swarm. What I have learned is that if I go through the above check list, I have more hives build out in the summer, and survive the winter.

Reading the Cells to Determine Hive Problems

Swarm cells – found in strong, healthy hives. Are usually a good size, and there are a lot of them.

Emergency cells – found in weaker hives. They just don’t ‘look right.’ Often smaller and crowded together. Never harvest these.

Superceedure cells – Longer, laying flat against the comb, lots of nurse bees hovering around.

Very long cell – sometimes there is a very long cell. You may be excited thinking it is a huge queen bee, but sadly, it is probably already dead.

This larva fell off out of the royal jelly and is in the lower cup of the cell.

When to Pinch a Queen

I find the bees are excellent at superseding queens. I have only been a beekeeper for a little over a decade, not a lifetime like some of my mentors, but if I start thinking about pinching a queen then I usually see a supersedure cell in the hive on the next inspection.

Pinching a queen is a 50/50 gamble. You may be pinching a perfectly good queen. I am guilty of pinching queens who stopped laying because of a dearth. I am also guilty of requeening a hive I thought was Queenless because there was no brood, but the queen was there. (Now I have learned to watch the bees. If they ‘sound’ aggressive, and ‘dance’ on a queen cage then I will remove the queen cage and look again for the queen.)

There are sometimes when you need to pinch a queen. When you see chalk brood in a hive, pinch the queen. I have removed infected frames and the bees on them, and saved the hive, but it didn’t overwinter. In most cases, even if I do not see any more chalk brood the hive will most likely fade. I have never had one of these hives overwinter.

Another time I will pinch a queen is if she has been in the hive for more than 10 days, is not fat looking, there is no brood, and it is not a dearth. If the queen has a thick thorax, long body, and wings, then I will add pollen and sugar water to stimulate laying and give her another 10 days. If she still isn’t laying, and there are no capped queen cells in the hive, then I will break the hive down into nucs, and requeen them.

You also want to requeen a hive that has a damaged queen. If you are inspecting and try to catch her, but accidentally break a wing, or leg, or pinch her, then requeen her, or let the hive requeen itself.

If you find a dead queen do not instantly requeen the hive. This may be a dead virgin. Or a virgin may have killed the old queen. There might be a queen in the hive.

How to Manage A Queenless Hive

After having bees for a while you can ‘hear’ if a hive is Queenless. It sounds angry. It may be more defensive. The bees may have made emergency cells. These are shorter than supersedure cells, and there are more of them. We have found 15 emergency cells on one frame. (do not harvest these as the queens are rarely top quality)

If you have a Queenless hive your choices are limited by the time of year.

ReQueen a Hive in the Spring

You can either add a new mated queen, a cell, or see if the bees are going to make their own queen. There are advantages to each.

Some say that the strongest hives are created when you add a cell, not a bred queen. The problem is that it will be 6 days for that queen to hatch. It will be another 1 day to 2 weeks before she is successfully bred. And it may be another day or two before she lays. So there may be a pause of 20+ days before the hive starts to build up. After that, the first eggs will not hatch into workers for 21 days, which means the hive has not seen new bees for up to 40 days, or just under 6 weeks. In the busy part of the year, bees only live 6 weeks.

This is not a problem if you have enough hives to add capped brood from another hive. In fact, it gives you an awesome chance to reduce mite load.

On the other hand, you have lost 1 month of honey production, and your hive is just starting to build up in July.

Another problem is that only 20% of queens make it back from their mating flights. You will not know if the queen has been successfully mated for 2-3 weeks.

We prefer to add a bred queen, as she can start laying immediately. If the hive is brood less, we will treat with oxalic acid before adding the queen. We do this once a day for three days.

The earlier it is in the year, the more likely it is for the bees to accept queens. Everything works in theory. We have had bees kill a queen in April. We have had hives accept a queen in September. As the saying goes, Bees will do what Bees do.

Queen Problems in Summer

Time of the upmost importance. You want the queen laying as fast as possible. Bees are more picky.

If there are capped cells in the hive than they may not be as interested in accepting your queen bee. If I saw capped cells and I didn’t want to raise them, I would destroy the cells.

I would check the frames carefully to make sure there wasn’t any eggs or young larva the bees could make into another cell.

Then, I would wait 12 to 24 hours. Queenless hives generally want another queen. That doesn’t mean they want the queen you bought.

In some cases they will let your queen live long enough to lay eggs. They will make supersedure cells and replace the queen.

If you are a new beekeeper with less than five hives, this may be your only option.

If you have enough hives you may want to make a nuc, put the queen in the nuc, and let it grow out.

That way, if the supersedure cell fails to produce a mated queen then you can combine the two hives. The original hive will be weak enough that there should be no problem combining the hives.

Can You Save a Queenless Hive Late Summer/Fall?

If it is august, you may just want to combine a Queenless hive with another. Late August or even September will not let your hive build up enough bees to overwinter.

We overwinter hives with a minimum of 7 frames of bees, with the frames covered at least 70%. August, September, and October is not enough time for the average hive to build up enough bees for the hive to overwinter successfully.

If you do want to overwinter a weaker hive, then requeen it, if you can get a queen. If there are less than 4 frames of bees, put them in a nuc. If the hive doesn’t build up when it is time to wrap the hive then put the nuc on top of a strong hive.

I will do this as long as the bees have built out enough resources. You will still need to feed a nuc a lot and replenish in late February (in our area). It is a gamble, but when I did this on purpose one year, I had 25 more hives in the spring than I would have had by letting the hives die.