Since I can't even tell what Stalky is talking about on that GOMI bullshit anymore (I don't even get where it's supposed to resemble anything to DO with my life, I mean JEEZ not to flaunt my degree but that shit wouldn't even fly in an MFA workshop on FICTION, which isn't even getting into the shit on "Sam's" blog about e-mails she claims I wrote and apparently now I stole her credit card WHILE SHE WAS OMG PREGNANT? I don't even know, a) bitch is cray and b) why aren't I in jail then?), let's talk about something I actually care about (Stalky can stop touching her no-no place; her five minutes of fame on my blog are over): bees.
How do you tell if a colony is queenless? I've only ever seen our queen once since we got our NUC in May and I'm worried. It's entirely possible the little wench is just hiding from me when I do our hive inspections. I haven't done an inspection in a couple of weeks because I usually get stung at least once per inspection and while I don't seem to react as much as the average bear in terms of pain or itching, I do get large, unsightly welts from beestings and I work in a service industry. I plan to do another inspection on my next day off (Wednesday), and know to look for larvae and use "bee math," and be on the lookout for overmany drone cells, but other than that how do I tell if the MFA Honeybees are without a queen?
Are there any eggs in the empty cells, does it look like you have a cell containing larvae at a variety of stages at development.
Our Queen swarmed a week ago, and even 1 week later the brood frames look noticeably different, lots of capped brood that the queen laid before she left, but very little in the early stages of development.
If she has gone, look for any possibly Queen cells, and destroy all but one, though double check a queen hasn't already hatched. If you haven't got any Queen cells and still can't find a queen you'll have to look in to re-queening the colony.
NB. we are new to this bee keeping me-larky, so most of that is just what I've picked up because we're having the same issue!
Posted by: Katie | July 31, 2012 at 05:07 AM