u/ShaktiNow

I’ve only seen a waggle dance once before in person. This time I was able to catch a video!
Just passed my one year beek anniversary 😁

Someone asked me to follow up after I posted about a mystery queen. She was totally different than the other bees in my hives and had her wings chewed off.

Wingless Wendy did not make it — though I don’t know for sure if they kicked her out or if she was killed by the workers or queen. A body was never found.

The story is a longish one to explain but I’ll sum it up as - I created a split hive and a nuc as back up when my original hive created 12 queen cells after a treatment.

Back to the nuc. So WW queen disappeared and the darker carni type virgin was spotted. Eventually she was mated. I checked one day and this rogue all black queen was in the nuc! I have no idea where she came from but she’s the second unexpected queen both in color and timing.
I close everything up confused. Trying to figure out how this happened. No way did my other queen transform into this … Original was not seen. Next inspection- my original queen is there. I am just about to put the inner cover on when the all black queen comes barreling out of the frames to the top. She’s looking a bit rough and also like maybe she got honey on her. She’s running and looks like she wants to fly off. I manage to catch her and put her in a temp nuc box. I’ve since put her and some brood and resources in a regular nuc.

Holy cow. This little nuc is like a hotel for wayward queens or something 😂 I realize I had a lot of cells at the start of June. But there were only ever 2 in the Nuc and I’ve now had 3 separate (2 unexpected) queens in it.
We’ll see what happens in another week 😂 Maybe another random queen will be there.

Also- I went from one hive on June 1st to a split and now 2 nucs. SMH. Bee math…

So the timeline wasn’t right for this queen to be mated and in my nuc. I suspect she may have come from one of the other two hives or is somehow a random rogue queen. Her wings have been chewed off. The girls seemed to be happy with her presence but I’m not sure if she’s a virgin or mated. She seems way too big to be a virgin but my little black Carni was on the small side so… what do we think?

Helped my aunt inspect her hives. Couldn’t find her queen. Last box, last frame and surprise! There was her daughter instead.

Helped my aunt inspect her hives. Couldn’t find her queen. Last box, last frame and surprise! There was her daughter instead.

Sorry this is a bit long. There a TLDR. 😂 NE Ohio

I was panicking last week about the temps and the formic pro I used in my hive. I called a mentor in the bee club who is also an inspector for a neighboring county. He said it would be fine as the temps would still be below the threshold and it was the 3rd day.

First lesson: do the freaking mite wash so you know what you should be doing. I very likely did not need to expose my hive to the formic pro. They were thriving and I didn’t see evidence of mites. I had been using OA monthly prior. I followed blanket treatment advice for first year keepers when that wasn’t appropriate for my hive.

Okay on to what my 7 day inspection found ( I was later told I should have waited until 10 days but it wouldn’t have mattered).

Last inspection we could not locate the queen. She’s a beautiful black booty gal and not always easy to find. She’s been marked but they always clean her off. There was plenty of evidence- beautiful brood pattern, larva, eggs, etc.

Fast forward to inspection.
I spent waayyyyy too long in the hive Monday looking for her. Had help and we went through several times with no luck. My bees are amazingly tolerant and I have wanted to keep their genetics going as it’s such a joy to be able to spend time with them. Anyways…

There were a few practice cups last inspection. Not charged. Everything looked good and we added another deep- frames were not drawn but it gave them more room and they had been filling some of the deeps with honey. Queenie liked laying in the mediums. SMH. But she had started laying in some of the deep frames finally.

Going in to treatment I had 2 deeps and 3 supers. I was hoping to do a split at some point after the treatment. I *did not* expect what I saw when I inspected.

Swarm cells:

Practice Queen Cups (actually formed, not the barely formed kind)- 13

Charged Queen Cells- 6

Capped Queen Cells- 3 plus …. 3 supersedure/ emergency cells.

So 6 capped with 6 charged.

I know the supersedure/emergency are likely from the formic reducing her scent to the hive, but we couldn’t find her again so now I’m worried she’s gone. Nothing I can do about it. But I really liked her. *sigh*
I also wanted to note- my bees were still super calm and did not act like they were queenless.

Given the timeline… I don’t understand how so many cups could be capped. The charged cells looked to be about 6 days (as of Monday). Would the formic have prompted them to build cups and her lay that quickly?
There were definitely a lot more cups than the previous inspection. I guess what I’m asking is could the formic have triggered the need to swarm?
I could have possibly split before but hoped adding the extra deep would buy time so I had all the bees treated. My aunt (the beek responsible for my new expensive hobby 😂) thought it could wait as well.

I left the supersedure cells in the main hive and split. I took all the charged and capped cells and put them in the split. But now I’m considering taking a frame of cells and putting them and extra bees and resources into a nuc in case the supersedure queens have issues. Should I have done something different? Should I make up a nuc?

I think I still have time to make adjustments. I believe Sunday-Tuesday is the window for the queens to start emerging. I’m keeping an eye/ear out earlier though.

TL;DR
I was worried about formic pro treatment having a detrimental impact on my hive.
7 day inspection results: No queen located. Larve but no eggs.
Discovered 6 capped queen cells with 6 more charged.
I split the hive. Should I do a nuc to keep a queen as back up in case the main hive supersedure/ emergency cells fail?

In 6a (Ohio). Put two pads on yesterday. The forecast temps have now increased. Naturally. 🤪
I have such a good queen and great temperament bees. I’m afraid of messing things up with this.
I’m panicking a bit because of all the stories I’ve read about things going south and killing the queen.
What would you do?
A- leave the pads and follow the instructions. It will be 82* on the third day of treatment.
B- remove one pad and switch to the 1 pad every ten days (I know that means I’ll be opening a fresh pack)
C- remove both pads and try again another time.
Forecast and Her Majesty👑

Helped my aunt with her hives today. Lots of new experiences this year, including, a charged queen cell, twin supercedure cells, and two freshly opened queen cells- only one queen spotted. (All different hives. She had 17) It was cool seeing these all in real life and not just in a book or slide show. 😁 NE Ohio