Poorly chicken

[hilda-and-evadne]

I am going to give the second hive - where there are still no brood at all - a few more days and then try to requeen it.

 

It looks as if a mated buckfast queen is the one to have. Would anyone like to recommend a supplier?

 

Thanks in advance.

[StephenW]

Hi hilda-and-evadne,

 

You should join the beekeeping forum, lots of advice on there and some members supply queens.

 

Steve

[hilda-and-evadne]

You should join the beekeeping forum, lots of advice on there and some members supply queens.

 

I am on the beekeeping forum, as "LittleGreyRabbit", and it is a very unfriendly place.

 

One of the participants, who is on this forum too, sent me a private message about a month ago just to tell me that my first hive was "doomed". Well, he knows nothing - that hive is thriving - brood, honey, new queen.

[StephenW]

Thats a pitty, sorry to hear that, I understand what you mean about the forum, it can me quite hard for a beginner like myself to get your point across because you don't know what information the people need to be able to answer your question, also with beekeeping there are many different opinion, its alot easier for someone to come and see your situation so you can get a more accurate assement.

 

Steve

[Hugetortoise]

Hope this is of some help. Maybe move a frame of eggs from your thriving hive to this queenless hive for the bees to make an emergency queen cell?

I may need to do this myself in a couple of weeks time if my newly hatched queen is not doing her job accordingly. By the way where are you in London? Saukuk

[hilda-and-evadne]

Maybe move a frame of eggs from your thriving hive to this queenless hive for the bees to make an emergency queen cell?

I may need to do this myself in a couple of weeks time if my newly hatched queen is not doing her job accordingly. By the way where are you in London? Saukuk

 

That's an interesting suggestion. Is there an optimum moment to do so, do you think? Before the cells are capped, I am guessing. I am in east Greenwich.

 

Thank you for the constructive comment - I will think about it over the weekend and try to find more information via Google on doing something like this.

[Old Speckled Hen]

I am going to give the second hive - where there are still no brood at all - a few more days and then try to requeen it.

 

It looks as if a mated buckfast queen is the one to have. Would anyone like to recommend a supplier?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

I have one from Pete Little

He is on BKF as Hivemaker

The website is http://www.exmoorbeesandbeehives.co.uk/buckfastqueens.htm

She heads a great colony.

Give him a try

Another supplier I have considered is at http://www.honeybeesuppliers.co.uk/index.html

[Old Speckled Hen]

I have two new Buckfasts on order from Pete.

Before you re -queen you need to make sure the hive is really queen=less.

I had to wait six weeks for a queen to lay last year and the colony is doing well this year.

You need a test frame; no sense in wasting thirty odd quid on a queen that will be killed.

[Olly]

I agree - if you have another hive, then just take a frame of eggs (as much as possible, rather than larvae) and stick it in the queenless hive. If they are queenless, then they will raise a queen cell. If they don't, then you know that there is a queen there somewhere even if she is not laying. Curiously, having a frame of eggs can sometimes stimulate a new queen into laying, so it can work either way.

 

I had to do this in my first year of beekeeping when my queen disappeared, it was a steep learning curve especially as I only had one colony and had to get the eggs from another beekeeper, but it was really amazing when it worked!

[hilda-and-evadne]

I agree - if you have another hive, then just take a frame of eggs (as much as possible, rather than larvae) and stick it in the queenless hive.... it was really amazing when it worked!

 

That would be interesting to try, even if only for the experience, but I have three reservations. First, at this point in the year, how likely is it that the new queen might not get mated? Second, with more wet weather forecast (I read a headline somewhere today about both Ascot and Wimbledon being rainy), that might reduce the opportunities for the new queen to be mated. Third, it seems that this way of re-queening a hive can result in a poor quality queen.

[hilda-and-evadne]

I have two new Buckfasts on order from Pete.

Before you re -queen you need to make sure the hive is really queen=less.

I had to wait six weeks for a queen to lay last year and the colony is doing well this year.

You need a test frame; no sense in wasting thirty odd quid on a queen that will be killed.

 

Oh, OK. So next step is to put a frame of eggs into the hive and inspect a few days later to see what the bees have done with it. Thank you.

 

Thank you for the recommendation of a source of Buckfast queens. Hope he has some left if/when I have to order one.

[Lesley]

We recently bought a Buckfast queen from http://www.honeybeesuppliers.co.uk/index.html that OSH mentioned.

They're in Hook Norton which isn't far from us so we picked her up in person. They're lovely people and we would certainly use them again.

[Old Speckled Hen]

We recently bought a Buckfast queen from http://www.honeybeesuppliers.co.uk/index.html that OSH mentioned.

They're in Hook Norton which isn't far from us so we picked her up in person. They're lovely people and we would certainly use them again.

 

That's useful to know, thanks Lesley.

Hook Norton .....lovely ale. Is the brewery still there?

[Lesley]

Yes, it is! They do brewery tours and have a shop. We usually have a pub lunch in the area for Carl's birthday and we keep saying we must take the brewery tour - his favourite beer has always been Old Hooky.