[wonderwooly]

opened up the hives today first time this year, one was a problem last year,
late on we had to shook the bees into a new hive as it had foul brood,
they where put it to a nuk as it was late in the season for completely rebuilding.
on opening there was no sign of FB not a lot of action and quite a lot of drones
and lots of drone larvae, we could not find the queen. decided to put them into
new normal hive anyway as that way we could look for the queen at the same time
again no sign, plus the workers looked well a bit disoriented, (not like the shook
hive we did before as soon as the queen was in all the rest followed suit.)
 so

1, should we buy a new queen
2, take frame brood from another hive
3, something else I haven't thought of?

thanks for taking time to read
 

[benkt]

I don't know where you are as in UK both EFB and AFB are notifiable and the hive would quite likely have been destroyed by the inspector although I think they can allow shaking a swarm for EFB.
Where we are its too early for new queens to be available and they probably won't make queen cells from an inserted brood frame either this early in the season so the best bet is to just merge the workers with a weak colony if you have one - assuming you are happy that they are clear of the foul brood. Personally, I think I would just let them go - would be a shame to lose another hive to foul brood if they are still carrying. Would be interested to hear if there are other options though as I'm still learning a lot...

[wonderwooly]

regarding efb or afb, I really don't think it would have survived if it was afb.
but also we quarantined it, and burnt all the frames and old hive under the
advice of an old but very experienced retiered inspector of hives,
we are in France.
 

[wonderwooly]

I've been trying to fined a solution to this hive and it dose look a bit bleak
i would not risk merging it because of the previous problem even though
it really dose look like the shaking, before winter has got rid of the efb.
however I just read yesterday that in the case of queenlessness the workers
revert to winter statues, in that they can last up to 6 months.
can anyone back this up? if so if, theoretically i could reserve a queen for asap
and possibly restart the hive?
 

[benkt]

I've heard of queenless colonies lasting a few months, but it can be problematic in that by the time our queen arrives, the bees will all be in foraging mode and you'll have a shortage of young nurse bees. Do you have another hive you could get a frame of brood from when the new queen arrives so there is someone around to feed the new young? Given you've ruled out merging the hive - why not wait and see and we can all learn from your experience?
There's also the risk of the laying workers killing any new queen - but you can try to get rid of them by shaking the colony out a distance from the hive a couple of weeks before the new lot arrive - instructions seem plentiful on the internet.

I'm helping a friend in a similar situation who has a queenless colony and laying workers and we're going through the process of combining her colony with one of mine which got through the winter with a queen but in a weak state. Now the rape has started flowering mine will go mental with the help of the extra workers and hopefully we'll be able to split the colony early in the year and she'll get a working hive back again. Well, that's the plan at least!

[wonderwooly]

thanks for the posts ben kt
that's a good point about the nursing bees and timing, we do
have another hive which is in good shape after the winter.
so that might be an option, and yes poor little buggers we could
shake them again, third move for them in under 6 months...
I read about 2000mt from the hive seems a lot for bees that
don't know where they are?
I'm going to look in to getting a QB from the south (France) they will
be way ahead perhaps.   

[HesterF]

Similar to mine - see other post on drone laying queen. I've now merged my two colonies - couldn't see any sign of the second queen and it was too early in the season to bring in a queen (and I put in eggs but they didn't raise  a queen from them - was advised not to try it again as it risked the strength of the egg laying colony). But I had nothing worse than varoa to worry about in the queenless hive. I'm due to go back in tomorrow to check how the merge has gone - given the rape is just coming into flower I need to get a super on and sort out the brood boxes (again).

[REDWOOD]

Did you see any brood? bees should be building up this time of year and you should have brood, if you don't then you are probably queenless or have a dud queen. If you add a frame of brood with eggs to a hive that has a queen even though shes not laying bees will not make a new queen, if your hive is queenless then they should make a new queen but the time it takes for a queen to emerge get mated (if there are drones) lay and for the new bees to get foraging may be too late. Sometimes it is better to let the weak disease prone ones go.  Good luck what ever you decide