Agriculture Industry

Guest

I have a new hive from a package I recieved 2 weeks ago. When I
transfered them into the hive, the queen cage was open, so I have no
idea if the queen survived. They have built up a fair amount of honey
on the tops of several frames, and pollen, but mostly just tiny eggs
at two weeks, many are 2 or 3 to a cell, but they seem to be on the
bottom. There are 4 or 5 messy, white, covered over areas scattered
over 2 or 3 frames, but nothing that looked like any capped brood
pictures I expected to see, and no larvae, or obvious queen. This is
my first time looking though so I may be missing things.
I'm not sure if I should be in a hurry at this point to try to do
anything like get a new queen, or maybe wait and see how the eggs
develop or what the white covered over areas might be.
Seems like if the eggs are from laying workers, it may already be too
late for any easy fix, and if there is still a chance it may be just a
slow starting queen, maybe waiting longer is ok. Not sure how long to
be sure of the situation though.
Thanks for any advice.

timrowe@eircom.net · Guest

Sometimes when a queen starts laying - or re-starts - she gets the
number of eggs wrong, but things should settle down. I'm not familiar
with packaged bees (we don't that here) but they've all been through
an unsettling experience, for sure. The "messy white" areas sound to
me like hatched eggs in bee-milk - perfectly normal. As they grow
bigger you'll be able to see the larvae more easily. Is it a laying
worker? - The easiest way to tell is by the pattern of laying - queens
lay in concentric arcs, workers are messy and sporadic..
Good luck. Tim