What if My Hive Becomes Queenless in Late Fall or Winter?

It goes without saying—there’s never a good time to be queenless, and late fall or winter is the worst time! Suppliers are no longer offering queens, and—let’s face it—drones are all but gone and queen season is over! What do you do?

If the hive has less that 4-5 deep frames:

If the hive has less than 4-5 deep frames covered with bees, join it with another hive. Even if you introduced a queen, there is a good chance they wouldn’t survive the winter anyway. If 

If the hive is a double deep box:

If the hive is a double deep box, or 7-8 deep frames covered with bees or better, you can try to save it. That late in the year, they can’t raise their own queen since there are virtually no drones left to mate with. So you can do one of two things:

1. Look for queen breeders in California, Florida, or Hawaii who may still have queens for sale, even late in the fall.
2. If that doesn’t work, just leave the hive alone. If you have other hives, wait until they have a few frames of brood in the early spring and give the queenless hive a frame or two of brood and a new queen as soon as new queens are available. In southern states, you can often give them brood in late February or early March, giving them the ability to raise their own queen provided sufficient drones are available.