Right, kettle’s on, sit down, because this update has a bit of everything in it. Some proper good news, one properly rough bit of news, and one story that’s still refusing to tell me how it ends.
The Queen Who Made It
Let’s start with the win, because I think we’ve all earned one.
I went back into her hive, my young queen’s own colony, the one the failing laying worker colony got merged into a couple of weeks back. She was never the one in trouble. She’s the strong young queen I’d been protecting and building up through all of this, and the mess got merged onto her, not the other way round. And there she was. Blue mark, calm as anything, walking across her own comb like she owns the place, because at this point she absolutely does.
She’s laying up about six frames of brood now. Six, on top of everyone she absorbed from a colony that couldn’t produce a single worker egg the last time I properly looked. That screen stack, the frame by frame merge, the decision to stop dragging it out and just put them together properly when things started looking stressed, all of it actually worked. I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t half expecting to open that hive and find another disaster. I didn’t. I found a proper, working colony, and she’s the one who made that happen.
Stores are on the low side though, so she’s had a feed to keep her building rather than stalling out just as she’s getting going. And while I was in there I spotted a few varroa on the bees themselves, not a huge number, but enough that I’m not going to sit on it. More on that below, because sorting it isn’t as simple as I first thought.
The Varroa Bit
I’ve seen a few varroa on the bees, not a huge number, but enough that I want it sorted properly rather than ignored. This week’s job is proper research and a call to the club house to see what’s actually available and what other people are using successfully right now. Slower than reaching for whatever’s sitting in the shed, but I’d rather take the extra few days to get it right than rush into the wrong treatment for the sake of doing something.
The One That Went Wrong
Now the bit I’ve been putting off writing.
The nuc got raided by wasps. I came back to one frame of bees left, barely a cluster, and no queen. She didn’t make it. I’m not going to dress that up as anything other than what it is, a proper loss, and a nasty one, because there was nothing gradual or explicable about it the way the rest of this season has at least given me theories to hold onto. Wasps got in, and that was that.
What was left wasn’t enough to stand as its own colony, so I merged the survivors into the other hive rather than trying to nurse a single frame of bees back to strength on its own with no queen to show for it. Better they’ve got a home and a job than sitting there dwindling to nothing.
Where’s the Queen
And then there’s 001, which is currently the story with no ending, and it’s driving me up the wall a bit if I’m honest.
You’ll remember she had a virgin queen emerge cleanly from her own cell a fortnight ago, the one good news story that fortnight that went entirely to plan. She was due out mating. I couldn’t spot her on the frames, no eggs yet either, but that’s honestly not the same as her not being there. Some queens are properly good at avoiding being seen, and I know that from experience, and two weeks without laying isn’t actually a red flag on its own, plenty of queens take that long to settle in and get going properly.
I had to pull myself up on my own impatience here though. I checked her on Tuesday, then again on Saturday, hoping to spot a queen cell if there was one going up, so it’s not like I’ve been in there constantly. But even that little bit of looking still isn’t long enough to worry properly yet. The proper window for a new queen to mate and start laying runs to about three weeks, sometimes longer if the weather’s been against her, so I’m holding myself to that before I let myself assume the worst. Jumping to conclusions this early would just be me being impatient, not the bees being late.
So I put in a test frame, a frame of eggs and young larvae from my strong hive, to see what the colony does with it. If there’s a queen in there just not laying yet, they’ll leave it alone. If there isn’t, they should start drawing queen cells on it within a few days, which tells me for certain rather than me squinting at an empty box guessing.
First frame went in, I had a look, and there were a few scattered drone cells dotted about, six or seven of them, nothing tidy or patterned. That’s actually one of the classic signs of laying workers rather than a queen, they lay in a random scatter rather than a proper patch. But it’s not the only thing that can cause it, a poorly mated queen running low on stored sperm can also lay a handful of scattered drone eggs early on before settling into a fuller pattern, so on its own it didn’t tell me which way this was going to go.
I put in a second frame. Still no sign of a queen, no fresh worker eggs, and the colony’s just capped the open brood I gave them normally rather than doing anything dramatic with it either way. Small silver lining regardless of what’s actually going on in there, that open brood keeps the pheromone topped up, which should at least stop any more workers from starting down the laying road while I wait this out. It won’t undo anything that might already be underway, but it puts a ceiling on how much worse it can get in the meantime.
Here’s the honest, slightly maddening bit I’ve learned this week. A normal test frame is usually reliable, if there’s no queen, the bees show you fast. But if a hive already has laying workers properly established, some research suggests the colony can basically ignore the evidence you hand it, or even remove eggs it would normally accept without question, because as far as it’s concerned it’s already hopelessly queenless and isn’t expecting real eggs to turn up at all. So even doing everything right here doesn’t guarantee I get a clean answer.
I’m giving her the full three weeks before I go back in properly and draw any real conclusions. It might tell me nothing new. It might tell me exactly what I’m hoping not to hear. Either way, I’ll know more than I do right now, which currently isn’t much.
Honestly, at this point I’m not sure if I’m reading the hive right, or if I’ve just gone properly laying worker paranoid after the season I’ve had.
Where Things Actually Stand
One hive properly turned around and thriving, which I am allowing myself to be genuinely pleased about. One hive lost outright to wasps, survivors folded into a stronger colony rather than wasted. And one hive still sitting in limbo, waiting on an answer I can’t rush no matter how many times I go and stare hopefully at the entrance.
The Good: a merged queen with six frames of brood and a colony that’s actually thriving, proper proof the whole screen stack plan worked.
The Bad: a nuc lost outright to a wasp raid, no ifs or buts about that one, just a genuine loss.
The Sticky: 001, still no confirmed queen, a test frame that might not even give me a straight answer, and a three week wait I’m holding myself to whether I like it or not.
Catching up? Start with diagnosing a laying worker hive, then what we actually did about it and how it was going two weeks before this.
Mum & Bee Girl x