Queen problems and remedies

[susan rudnicki]

Posting this situation to help illustrate the things that can come up in Spring with queen problems. My post to Micheal Bush and his answer back—

Swarm added to queenless hive…
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Susan Rudnicki <susanrudnicki@gmail.com>
3:59 PM (16 hours ago)

to Michael
I have a large hive (2 deeps, 4 meds)that became queenless since a inspection on 3/27 showed 7 capped emergency cells, (on 3/15 they had open brood) Either the QCs were fakes (from drone layer—this hive had been dumping prodigious amounts of dead adult drones off the front porch ) or they failed. No virgin queens seen on 4/3, and all emerg. QCs chewed out. Population way down so I dumped in a swarm 4/4.
Was I hasty to do this? Today is the 12th, and still no eggs or open brood or VQs seen. If the swarm had a virgin, she could be on a mating flight. If the earlier emerg. queens had been viable, would they still not have had enough time to be mated by now? (only 10 days since emergence)
Please correct my figurings Thanks! Susan

Michael Bush <michael@bushfarms.com>
5:06 AM (2 hours ago)

to me
A virgin in a swarm is usually a few days old (probably older than 3
days in order to be “hardened” enough to fly) and she usually (but not
always) will be laying about 14 days after she emerged which would be
about 11 days after you got her which would make it likely she would be
laying by the 15th. If she’s not laying by 21 days after emergence
(probably the 22nd) then she probably will be a drone laying queen.

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