This is where having additional hives is a great help!
Through all the swarming activity of May and June - I ended up with one queenless hive . Without a queen this hive will dwindle and die.
Over 4 weeks ago - I gave my queenless hive 2 frames of FRESH layed eggs. I exchanged the frames and let the hive "rest" for 3 weeks. 2 weeks for them to MAKE the queen - another week to leave "nature" be. Inspection 2 weeks ago revealed - "they forgot how to make a queen" or "something"??? who knows. Not one attempt was made to make a queen cell.
Once again - I robbed frames of EGGS from the donor hive....this time...one frame had the beginnings of a queen cell - with nice white royal jelly layed in the bottom.
Inspection is planned for this weekend. What will if find? I'm hoping they continued to nurture the queen cell. For a hive to REQUEEN in the fall is not a bad thing - as long as they do so before they start killing off the drones for winter (kinda need them yet). You'll start out in the spring with a nice fertile queen.
What if they failed, again? I'll seriously start making plans to get this hive down to 10 frames (one deep) and get them combined with another hive. (I have to make some determination as to the population numbers) It'd be better to do this sooner than later. It's going to mess up the strong hive for nectar/honey storage. I'm not being selfish here talking about MY honey - I'm talking about the honey storage THEY NEED for the winter. Remember - while these hives are "combining" they are 3 deeps high! (3 deeps that need to go back down to 2 for overwintering - and it's WHAT MONTH?) We've got about 3 months to get everyone and everything rearranged.
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