I have a lang that has been queenless for 22 days
during that time they have refused two lovely Russian Ladies.
There is no brood of any sort (from egg to capped larvae)...
Also I have newly started TBH with 5 frames almost full. Is there a chance for survival of the queenless hive if I put them in an extra TBH and give them one of the frames from the new TBH with brood and eggs in it ?
I would hate to loose both hives by putting too much stress on the nuc in the TBH.... :(
>during that time they have refused two lovely Russian Ladies.
That's too bad. How are you attempting to requeen? I'd be hard pressed to introduce 2 queens into a hive within 22 days. I figure the longer it takes, the better. The last queen I introduced was early this month, a Buckfast queen into a Carniolan hive and it was 6 days before I pulled the cork on the candy and another 3-4 days before she was finally released.
Can't advise you on the other question.
A push in cage is hard to beat.
George, the first queen and her attendants never made it out of their cage...they were dead and the candy appeared not to be touched...The 2nd queen intoduced 3 days later seemingly was met with great interest, bees were all over her cage trying to feed her, went back in a week to be sure she was out....she was plus all her attendants, candy was completely gone, I wrote her off as being dead because a week later I could not find eggs, larva , etc.
Thanks for your interest,
and Michael, I will get a push in cage before trying this again...
>I wrote her off as being dead because a week later I could not find eggs, larva , etc.
I wouldn't write her off just yet. If the queen was banked a while which is often the case, it can take a quite a while for her to start up laying again. This was discussed in a recent Bee Culture in fact. You'd expect a week after being released that you'd find eggs, but it could take longer.
When was the last time you checked for eggs?
I've never used a push-in cage, I plan to try one sometime, but I've never had a problem introducing queens with regular cages.
push in cages work best for cross species introductions .. A.m. linguista queen into A.m. Scutellata colony.
It would also work really well for russian introductions, and will work well as a general use acceptance problem colonies.
Push in cage with a Queen and dump out the bees make them go back in the hive... with the new Queen in side it worked for me.
You might want to pull a frame of brood from another and use a pushin cage as suggested on some open comb near the brood frame. Also, Russian queens as I have been told smell a bit different and are harder to requeen to another race.
George Ferguson wrote >"I wouldn't write her off just yet. If the queen was banked a while which is often the case, it can take a quite a while for her to start up laying again. This was discussed in a recent Bee Culture in fact. You'd expect a week after being released that you'd find eggs, but it could take longer"
George, thanks for the advice from years of experience. I waited another week and checked again, the 'dead' Russian Queen was doing very well . [img]smile.gif[/img]
>the 'dead' Russian Queen was doing very well
Hey, glad to hear it Wayne [img]smile.gif[/img]
For what it's worth, I don't have years of experience beekeeping, I've got something over a year of beekeeping under my belt. It was just a hunch and I got lucky [img]smile.gif[/img]