Queenright or Not?
- dmcaron7
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Average losses last year for WVBA members were 22% overwinter, considerably less than the past 12 years, although the same as the last 6 six-year average. One-half of the individuals, 21 of 41 WVBA respondents, had no loss while 6 individuals (of 20) had total loss. I asked those with loss why they felt their colonies did not survive. Three said they did not know – I recommend a dead colony necropsis https://pnwhoneybeesurvey.com/dead-colony-forensics-by-dewey-m-caron/ Of the remaining 17 respondents, one-half said varroa mites and one less (7 individuals) said queen issues. Another 7 said weak in the fall and 2 said starvation. Those are the BIG 3 that should be in our fall Management Plan beginning in August and continuing into September.
When we look at our colonies in August it’s not uncommon for beekeepers to feel they need to requeen. A percentage of colonies in August/September turn up queenless. Typically, these involve colonies that swarmed, or splits that were supposed to raise their queens but failed to do so.
At this point in the season, most of these colonies are missing at least two ingredients for us to try to salvage a queenless colony to even to make it into a nucleus. They’ve been queenless for weeks, which means they are likely also broodless (drone brood doesn’t count!). For such colonies, it’s a serious challenge toward successful requeening.
You can think of this in terms of age of bees, pheromones, and all the complexities of biology. The bees are contrary to our goals as beekeepers to make such colonies queenright. Adding one or more brood frames, a standard means to get back to queenright condition, adds young bees and brood pheromone. But it usually takes more to fix a fall queenless colony – they are a hot mix of a complicated, confusing biology for bees and for us.
When a colony has been queenless for a long period, with all the brood emerged, they are seriously falling apart. Do you see a laying worker situation? You can identify this by seeing multiple eggs in cells, eggs laid on top of bee bread filled cells, multiple eggs in queen cups, queen cells at various stages of being torn down, a loud colony roar, and, if it’s been long enough, popcorn drone brood.
Laying workers make requeening a challenge. We will have to overwhelm them to get their colony back on track. Try shaking the adult bees into the bushes somewhere, Smash/smear all the drone brood, add multiple frames of brood, and then, and only then, think about adding a queen. Personally, in these situations I prefer to use cells or virgins, or a queen-right nucleus taken from somewhere else (either a nuc or one you can make up from another colony).
The best way to solve a laying worker colony is to not let your colonies reach that state. Seriously. They are often “too far gone to rescue.” When they do reach that state, it’s time for a “hard reboot”. We can sometimes overwhelm them with good healthy brood and a fresh queen but in other instances that doesn’t work. In the fall, the most we can hope to gain is a nucleus colony to overwinter.
Beekeeping is more difficult with just one colony. It leaves you without a lot of options. In the absence of multiple colonies, get to know your beekeeping neighbors. Someone will have the brood you need. And that nuc box sitting in your garage? Build a nucleus in it to keep on hand as a repair kit. That “just in case” resource colony That little box can become an indispensable spare parts box.
I hope you don’t find any queenless colonies as you work to get colonies ready for winter. Maybe it can be saved as a nucleus – that would be a nice gain. Good luck with fall preparations.
