Modern Homesteader

As a new beekeeper, one of the many fears that comes with the beekeeping life is the loss of a colony due to the absence of a queen. Even as I spent all last winter preparing myself for the arrival of my two honey bee hives, the fear of a queenless hive coming to fruition was not something I was expecting to experience so early into this new endeavor. But it happened about a month ago, to not one, but both of my hives.

In a beehive, there is one queen and one queen only. When a hive loses its queen (which can happen for several reasons, including a colony has swarmed, death or succession) a hive is left in an extremely vulnerable position until a new queen is born and successfully mated. The role of the queen is vital to the colony because she is the only bee that is capable of laying fertilized eggs, thus ensuring the survival of the colony.

Novice beekeepers, from what I’ve read, can have a hard time understanding the signs of a queenless hive. Luckily, there are several signs that allowed me to immediately know both of my hives were without a queen.

Upon opening my hives to do an inspection, I immediately noticed a lack of eggs and brood. The first symptom of a queenless hive will be a lack of freshly laid eggs, which will then be followed by a lack of brood (larvae). This symptom alone, didn’t necessarily mean my queens were no more. However, upon further inspection, as I moved to the inner frames of the hive, I noticed queen cells. These are larger, elongated cells that are used to house new queens.

The sight of these queen cells told me right then and there, not only did my colony lose their queen but fortunately, the worker bees (the ladies), were already remedying the situation. A queen produces her very own pheromones, knowns as the queen’s scent. This basically tells all the other honey bees in the hive that she is the queen, the mother, she rules all and don’t mess with her.

When the worker bees notice the absence of that scent, they begin the process of emergency queen rearing. They will choose several cells of female eggs that the previous queen had laid prior to her unknown demise and they will begin to build queen-size rearing chambers around the young female larvae.

Unfortunately, new queens fail more often than people would like to admit. While there was the potential, I would have to buy a new queen and introduce her to the colony myself. The little experience I do have in this area told me to let nature sort its way out before intervening. One of my many guidebooks on this situation told me to wait five days and come back. Within those five days, the new queen should be laying, and the colony should be on the mend.

So I waited for five long days. It wasn’t easy to keep out of the hives during that time, but I did. And on the fifth day, I went back in. Much to my surprise, I saw freshly laid eggs and brood. There are many other unfortunate outcomes that could have happened in this situation. This time, luckily, turned out to be a successful learning experience.

Because both hives had to requeen this late in the season, I will continue to feed them sugar syrup to help ensure they produce enough honey to make it through the winter.

Miriah Kardelis is a modern homesteader who is always looking for new ideas. Reach her at [email protected].