[i]Help[/i] (I cross posted this in case someone sees in on another forum) :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:
well, long story short, and because I am a spaz I wount get into how it happened, spilt milk, cant unring a bell, or close the bard door after the horse.. :-X.you get my point...well here ya go...
My queen was like :mrgreen: "so out of here" when I installed a package today. I will not elaborate, lets just say, since this was my first package, and I am pablam fed installing nuks...like watching a favorite christmas ornament break, my queen flew off when the cork, well, you know...umm, well, lets just say by the time I realized the wrong cork was being removed, she knew it and flew out of her cage. :?
Now,
question number 1
What are the chances she stayed close by and did not fly to hong kong. And will stay close the hive and will retreat in there as she watches everyone else this afternoon, (I know, no one has a crystal ball) :(
and question number 2
if I dont see any comb being drawn by the gals by say Monday (This is Saturday) should I just go ahead and put a new queen in there (of course cage and all - hello) assuming Queen said, Hell yes and flew away today.
just a couple questions.
well, long story short, and because I am a spaz I wount get into how it happened, spilt milk, cant unring a bell, or close the bard door after the horse.. :-X.you get my point...well here ya go...
My queen was like :mrgreen: "so out of here" when I installed a package today. I will not elaborate, lets just say, since this was my first package, and I am pablam fed installing nuks...like watching a favorite christmas ornament break, my queen flew off when the cork, well, you know...umm, well, lets just say by the time I realized the wrong cork was being removed, she knew it and flew out of her cage. :?
Now,
question number 1
What are the chances she stayed close by and did not fly to hong kong. And will stay close the hive and will retreat in there as she watches everyone else this afternoon, (I know, no one has a crystal ball) :(
and question number 2
if I dont see any comb being drawn by the gals by say Monday (This is Saturday) should I just go ahead and put a new queen in there (of course cage and all - hello) assuming Queen said, Hell yes and flew away today.
just a couple questions.
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Re: screwed up on installing package oops and help please
Sat, April 28, 2007 - 6:43 PMAre the bees staying in their hive? They tend to cluster around the queen in cases like this. If you see a cluster of them on the ground that might be cause Her Highness is down there, check carefully, and start scooping.
There are some other solutions. DO you know other beekeepers? (are you doing a Langstroth or top bar hive?) If you lost the queen but have the bees, another way to deal is to put some brood comb, with fresh eggs in it, in the hive- they'll make a new queen out of the eggs if the old one got killed in a botched install. But I doubt it'll get to that- I dont think queens just abscond without the rest of the bees, even in a situation like you're describing.
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Re: screwed up on installing package oops and help please
Sat, April 28, 2007 - 6:48 PM -
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Re: screwed up on installing package oops and help please
Sat, April 28, 2007 - 11:02 PMI stuck around long enough to kick myself for about an hour and watch...pretty much all the bee's were staying at the hive, except for the couple hundred that were flying around in my and their excitement..
I wont know until tomarrow I guess.
I have had numerous (sign of hope?) responses telling me that by the use of pheremones, she really has no where to go, and if she smells her girls at the hive that she took off from she will realize they all didnt follow her and she will return. However, I really dont know how many bee's took off with her already...right?
I feel like such an ass...well tomarrow is another day, and I will be loaded up with more sugar water to take to them...
thanks and by the way...
yea this was my first queen cage...have had bee's off an on for 10
years but I will be honest, I thought the cap I took off was the
cork...and boy did that girl know that I was stupid or boy was she so
hell bent on leaving my slow ass fingers couldnt replace it fast enough.
I am crossing everything to hope that she did come flying back to the
hive, I was surprised that not all the bee's took off looking for her,
but I left the empty cage in the hive, so they probably thought she
was still there. Oh well, live and learn, life is a classroom after all.
So, I will go in tomarrow, with a ton more sugar water, keep them fat
and sugared up till monday when I can hopefully get me a new queen.
ANd this time she is staying in her cage in that box for a couple
days. That is of course, IF my super fast and smart queen did not come
back to the hive. I hope she did, I mean , I didnt think bee queens
didnt want to leave without their friends and travel alone...I will
learn from this, so everyone cross everything and hope she is smarter
than Me!
So I guess this begs the question...how long will the bee's stay in the hive if the queen is not there to encourage them along...? i.e.how much time do I have to requeen? -
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Re: screwed up on installing package oops and help please
Sun, April 29, 2007 - 9:41 AMthey'll stay in the hive till they die out sometimes, but it helps if they think the hive is their own to begin with .
Basically, it seems it can go either way on whether a queenless colony/swarm/package will accept the box.
I just hived a swarm which might have lost it's queen in the process (based on how they're behaving) and they're staying in there, building comb (and I"m going to give them some brood comb so that they raise a new queen if the old one is really dead or gone like I think). I just read a Beesource posting about a similar situation- a swarm that stayed in the hive successfully but didnt' have a queen. However, I"ve also caught two other swarms in the past, and it was obvious that I missed the queen in the process, and the bees didn't stay.
They'll adopt a queen cage though- there's so much pheremone on it that it's a great way to get them to accept a hive or a swarm trap. I have heard (but never done this) that the cage has the scent for weeks, and can be used as a swarm lure (in a swarm trap/box set in a tree) for quite a while after you last had a queen in there.
So, hard to tell without seeing evidence of eggs in the new comb in a few days.
If you're in the Bay Area, PM me if you need some brood comb, that'll get them going again with a new queen if they lost her.
Make sure if you give the bees some brood comb, that you don't also give them bees from another colony- they'll accept brood but not other nurse bees.
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