Identifying and Fixing a Queenless Hive: Signs & Requeening Tips
How to Tell if Your Hive Is Queenless
At some point, all hives will become queenless. At times they requeen themselves and we never know it, or they become queenless and fail to raise a new queen—none of which are ideal.
There are a variety of ways to tell if your hive has lost its queen.
- There is no capped brood, eggs, larvae, or queen cells, and it is between February and October, your hive is almost certainly queenless.
- There is capped worker or drone brood but no eggs or larvae. In general, the points from number one apply here too.
- There are no eggs or larvae, and there are queen cells with developing larvae present in the hive. If this is the case, determine what kind of queen cells they are to determine what your next step is. See below.
- There is brood but it’s all drone brood, with no worker brood present.
- Bees act nervous, jittery, and make an unusually loud roaring sound.
Spotting Eggs and Larvae
Seeing eggs and larvae can be a challenge. Here are some tips that could help:
· Ensure sunlight is behind you or shine a flashlight into the bottom of cells to fully illuminate them.
· Use your smartphone! Position the frame so the light source shines into the cells. Next, hold your phone about six inches from the frame and take several pictures or a video, making sure it is focusing on the cells. You can then zoom in for a closer look. Note: Eggs and larvae are typically found in the center of the frame, in the center of the brood nest.
· Tear open cells with your hive tool to see all the way to the bottom of the cell.
· Using black foundation frames makes seeing eggs and larvae much easier.
Different Types of Queen Cells
Most beekeeping books explain that swarm cells are typically located along the bottom and sides of frames, while supersedure and emergency cells are located in the middle of frames. While that is often true, I’ve seen the contrary plenty of times. Here are a few additional ways to tell the difference:
Swarm cells:
- Often located along the bottom and sides of a frame on the outer row of larvae—wherever that is.
- Found in overcrowded hives, where every box is more than 80% full of bees.
- 90% of the time found in spring or very early summer.
- The hive appears generally healthy and is full of bees and brood, with a good brood pattern.
- Often 5–20 queen cells are present.
Supersedure cells:
- Commonly located in the middle of frames
- Typically found in weakening or dwindling hives that aren’t full of bees
- Found all times of the year
- Hive often appears weak, with a poor brood pattern
- Often only a few queen cells
Emergency queen cells
When a queen is killed or hurt, the colony must react by rearing a new queen as quickly as they can. These cells are different from supersedure or swarm cells in that the workers select a larva already existing in a regular worker cell to raise. This new cell must be modified and the feeding schedule altered so as to re-engineer a worker into a queen. The cell is extended to accommodate her soon-to-be large size. They are usually located wherever eggs and larvae are present.
My Hive Has Queen Cells and a Laying Queen—Now What?
If you have a laying queen in your hive, verified by seeing her, or you are seeing plenty of healthy eggs, larvae, and brood, yet you are also seeing queen cells, there are a few things you need to do.
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Make sure what you are seeing are actually queen cells and not a queen cup. A queen cup is simply a “starter cell” that lays in waiting but is unused at the moment.
- Verify you don’t have a drone layer laying eggs rather than a queen. This is rather easy to assess. If you see more than one egg per cell (multiples, actually), then you may very well have a laying worker. Read “Drone Laying Queen, Laying Workers, and Genetic Diversity”
If neither of the above applies, one of three things is likely happening:
- A newly introduced queen (1–2 weeks) may not have fully established her pheromones, causing bees to raise queen cells. Simply scrape them off with your hive tool.
- If the queen isn’t new, the hive might be raising supersedure cells to replace a failing queen. In that case, order a new queen ASAP, remove the queen cells, remove the old queen upon the new one’s arrival, and install the new one.
- Your hive may be preparing to swarm—see “Swarm Control Secrets.”
NOTE: Bees can raise a new queen in just 12 days when starting with a one-day old larva, so time is of the essence. If you see capped queen cells, gently uncap one—if there’s a fully developed white pupa inside, you need a new queen within 2–3 days; otherwise, it’ll be too late to install her before they hatch out. If the pupa is turning brown, it’s too late—they’ll hatch in 1–2 days. Trying to remove all queen cells is risky—you’ll likely miss one, and a virgin queen could kill the new one you introduce. While some colonies briefly tolerate two queens, it’s usually short-lived.
Requeening
Deciding if a hive needs to be requeened and finding the queen can be the most challenging aspect of requeening! Once those two things are out of the way, the rest is easy!
Here are some tips to requeening:
· Don’t kill the old queen until you have the new one in your hand.
· Install the new queen within 24 hours of killing the old queen—but it’s actually better to do it within a few hours to prevent the hive from starting to grow queen cells that would have to be removed later.
· Make sure the hive can access the candy part of the queen cage to release her. Note: Regardless of the type of queen cage, install it with the candy (or marshmallow) facing down.
· Install the cage perpendicular to the frames so that when you push the frames together the queen isn’t damaged by honey or comb pushing through the wire mesh.
· Check back in about 7 days to verify she has been released and is laying (look in on the center frames)
· If you don’t see eggs, it’s likely she wasn’t accepted. You can either purchase a new queen (watch for queen cells in this instance), let them raise their own, or combine this hive with another.
By: Blake Shook