Queenless...oh no!

Well...it happened. Our hive is definitely queenless.

We checked today, and all we saw were capped drone cells. We have about 5 or 6 bars of comb partly drawn out.

Domed cells spell DOOM for the colony.

 We ordered another queen a week ago, but apparently they are on back order due to the weather. Also, I think the supplier wants us to come pick her up! We can't do that because we live several hours away. So our only other option is to find a nice beekeeper in the area who might let us have a couple frames of brood to cut out and put into our top bar hive so they can raise a queen.

Strange thing is, the colony is really very calm! They didn't seem agitated at all when we checked the comb, maybe just a little disheartened or confused. I hope that when we give them brood comb, they'll be stimulated to produce queen cells and raise one of their own.

Here are a few pictures from today's adventure:

Some drone cells at the bottom- you can see one uncapped cell.

If you look closely, you can see the larvae in the cells. We watched workers feeding the drone brood.

The comb is all yellow (just like our cars!) from all the pollen.

I hope that some of those darker-looking cells are honey in the making.

Hello? Are you there?

We opened our hive today to see what was going on. It's been getting nicer; warm and in the 60's the last week or so.

The hive has been very busy. The first two top bars we pulled out had nothing attached yet, and the third had a plethora of bees festooning from it. We quickly put that one back inside so they could continue working.

Bar 4 had a small amount of comb and festooning bees.

Bar 5 had an issue with cross-comb. We had to break it a little to free it. I pushed the comb to where we wanted it to go (hopefully they'll get the hint and re-attach it there.)

 Bar 6 was a MASSIVE comb- a bit more than a bar's width. We damaged it a little getting it loose, which is disappointing, but there were bees all over it. We saw a lot of pollen and nectar being stored in these combs.

 

 As we were looking, we didn't see any eggs or brood. That was very worrisome. The bees didn't seem aggressive or lethargic. They have been working hard to build comb and bring in resources. I also noticed that some of them were fanning on the top bars when we picked up the comb. I hope this is because a Queen is present on the bar I was holding.

Not seeing any brood made me nervous, so I went back and looked at the pictures we had taken (thanks, honey!). I think I see the Queen in this picture- bottom left, abdomen completely golden-colored, butt facing the left. I remember her being golden-colored from the time I saw her in the cage, so I think we are okay.

We also saw two Small Hive Beetles. We weren't sure what to do about them, but I think the next time I'll try to squash them.

It was a very nerve-wracking inspection, but I think we're getting the hang of it! We only squashed a couple bees trying to put the top bars back in. Our 'brush' (made of feathers) helps to get them back down between the bars. They did NOT like it when we blew smoke on them- most of them just pointed their hind ends in the air and fanned like crazy. The hive noise also picked up considerably. We haven't been stung (yet), so I think we'll go easy on the smoke for now.

Whew! Hopefully the bees will build straight combs and next time we'll see some brood.

Until then, bee good!