Hey everyone! I'm still very new to beekeeping. Only my second year! Last season, sometime in August I lost my queen. Not sure how just upon inspection she was nowhere to be found and no new eggs. I tried to requeen and the hive rejected her. This year things were off to a great start! New nucleus, bees were doing great! About a week ago during inspection I saw the queen, she was healthy, lots of new eggs and brood. I just finished a hive inspection, Did not find the queen, no new eggs, lots of brood. And some queen cells. I lifted the second brood box off and in doing so damaged the wax the bees like to build between the two brood boxes. I notice a queen cell that had been opened with the removal of the box. To my untrained eye, it definitely looked like a queen, large long body with deep golden coloration. I only saw her back end, I turned to place the upper brood box down and as I turned back I caught a glimpse of her quickly run down between the frames. I looked all over the adjacent frames and could not find her again. (again, I'm a noobie.) So here is the end question. Should I be worried? What am I doing wrong that my hive keeps losing queens, and if what I saw was indeed a new queen should I let the hive do its thing or try to requeen?
me personally am not into doing too many hive inspections...look at it this way..what if someone ripped the roof off your house every week and pulled all the walls apart and then put it all back together, you wouldnt be a happy camper..so maybe once a month ill take a looksy.. I would leave your hive alone for at least 3 weeks and let them fix up the hive and if there was fresh brood, they will make a new queen.. so in 3 weeks do an inspection and see if any new brood, if not then no queen, and if no queen cells or evidence of a queen, then you may have to buy one, if you see new brood, just close it up and leave it alone, you dont need to see the queen as long as there is new brood present, and every hive inspection you risk killing the queen either by squishing her or dropping her out of the hive..
And Bob got here and gave a good answer. I haven't seen any of my queens this year, but I'm pretty sure they are there, the 2 I did check had worker brood, the less I poke around, the healthier she will be.
