r/Beekeeping Wiki

Am I queenless?

How to figure out if your queen is in the hive

• Introduction
• Signs to look out for
  • When to expect queenlessness
  • Test frames
• They’re queenless - what now

Introduction

You likely landed here because you suspect you are queenless. Maybe you’ve attempted to make a replacement queen (todo link) and are unsure whether it worked. Maybe things just don’t look right. Or as a new beekeeper, maybe you are just under the constant anxiety that you surely killed the queen by accident.

TODO: link to how to make a queen

If you are here looking for signs of queenrightness, there’s two edge cases here that you should be aware of: Drone Laying Workers (DLWs), and Drone Laying Queens (DLQs). In both of these cases, it can seem as though the colony thinks they are queenright due to the presence of brood pheromones. It is up to you to determine if this is the case, so it’s worth knowing about them.

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Signs to look for

If you have inspected your hive and you saw single eggs (occasionally two) laid in cells then you are very likely queenright. Tip the brood box(es) up and look at the underside. If you do not see queen cells (either capped or open) (todo: photos) then relax.

TODO: photos of emergency vs swarm cells

If you are expecting a new queen and do not see eggs - e.g. you think there might be a virgin present - take a look at the brood area. Look to see if you are seeing the beginning of brood nest organization, preparing for her to lay into:

• Frames have a definite cleared out spot in the center with no honey/nectar stored.
• The bottom of the cells are shiny (polished) ready for her to lay into
• The bees are calm

You might have also noticed that you have queen cells that have recently been opened - this is another time where you can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that you won’t be finding eggs, but can assume with the same degree of certainty that there’s a queen in there somewhere.

In either “normal” case, come back in a week and see how things have changed.

TODO: photos of polished cells

Checklist of Queenlessness:

• No eggs
• Queenless hum / roar - Fanning furiously at the top of the frames and inside the hive after opening
• Increase agression / defensiveness
• Cells not being polished
• Not drawing comb
• Unpolished cells

Checklist that you’re queenright:

• Eggs - she was there in the last 3 days
• Calm demeanor
• Drawing comb
• Polished cells
• Queen tooting (zzzzzzzzt-zzt-zzt-zzt-zzt noise coming from the hive)

TODO: Add links to “queen mating timeline” page

When should I suspect I am queenless?

There are a few telling signs of queenlessness. Any one of the following should make you suspicious:

• There are no eggs to be found in the brood nest. As time progresses, there will be no young brood and eventually capped brood will become very sparse.
• Bees may appear nervous compared to previous inspections.
• There may be aggressive fanning from the hive, often referred to as a queenless hum / roar.
• Capped queen cells have appeared. Large, well developed swarm cells at the edges of a frame are an indication you may have had (or are about to have) a swarm. Smaller emergency cells in among the brood nest may indicate an unplanned queen replacement.

Testing Framing

Many times you just are not sure. You see one or more signs of queenlessness, but nothing definite. At this point, you will want to test them to see if they have a queen. A queen guarantees the life of the superorganism and if they are queenless, they will do everything in their power to fix this situation.

1. Open up one of your other hives.
2. Find a frame that contains some eggs.
   • Optional extra (if you’re confident doing it): Make a notch in the comb with your hive tool just underneath a nice row of eggs. Bees seem to make more robust emergency cells at the edge of comb.
3. Put that frame into the broodnest of the suspected queenless hive.
4. Mark the frame in some fashion such that you can find it again later.
   1. Everyone has their own method of marking frames. One suggested method is to use color coded thumbtacks. For example, a silver thumbtack might represent “possible queen cell on this frame.” A Posca paint pen also works fine.
5. Close everything up and give them a week (3 days minimum).
6. When you return for reinspection, check the frame with donor eggs.
   • Do not shake the frame without inverting it first
   • You can shake it if you turn it upside down -this is to prevent dislodging of larvae in the cells if there are any
   • Mostly, cells should be noticable as soon as you pull the frame

If you are queenless, you should see the beginning of an emergency queen cell (todo photo). One or more of the worker cells will have been elongated and will contain some visible white royal jelly. (todo photo) If the cells are just capped as workers, with no emergency cells, you are queenright.

TODO: photo of OTS notch in comb

TODO: photo of the start of an e-cell

As a side note: adding a frame of eggs to a potentially queenless hive has one additional benefit. Open brood emits a pheromone that keeps workers from sexually developing. It is the absence of brood pheromone that provides the stimulus for laying workers. (todo link) Your additional frame of eggs can provide a little insurance policy to lengthen the “safe time” to remain queenless.

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I’m definitely queenless. What now?

You have options.

1. Buy a mated queen: There are skilled queen breeders out there that specialize in producing bees with various traits. Some may be more gentle, better honey producers or more varroa resistant. Buy yourself a mated queen and introduce her to your colony. (todo: link to queen intro) Before you introduce the new queen, take a few minutes and look through your colony. If there are queen cells inside, scrape them off or remove the frame and use it to start a nucleus colony on the side. (todo link to making a nuc)
2. Let them raise a queen: You’ve tested for queenlessness and they’ve started making queen cells. Inspect the colony and remove all but 1 or 2 of the largest nicest cells. Make sure those cells are on the same frame or on an adjacent frame. Close the colony up. Leave the colony undisturbed for about a month. Start your count from the day you added the frame of eggs.
3. Combine this colony with one or more existing colonies: There may be a time where you have “enough colonies” or a queenless colony may just be weak and you feel it isn’t worth your time to get them up and running this season. It is perfectly sensible to combine this colony with an existing colony. (todo link to colony combine)

   TODO: link to how do I introduce a queen; how do I make a nuc/split; how do I combine colonies