confused. hive keeps rejecting queens.

[derrick1p1]

Hello All:
Hive #1 was a nuc earlier this spring.  The original queen was rejected (may have swarmed though).  They reared a queen, she mated and started laying well. 

They then started rearing emergencies cells couple of weeks later.  They reared new cells, but after a couple of weeks of no eggs, I introduced a new queen.  They accepted her and she started laying. 

I checked one week later, could not find queen.  Eggs present, but also 2 emergency cells, almost capped.  Searched for queen, but didn't find her.  I will look again, but pretty sure she is gone as I'm getting fairly good at finding her when needed.

Any suggestions as to what may be going on?  I will leave this hive alone and let them rear the emergency cells as they obviously need them.  But wonder what could be going on.  I'm not treating this hive differently from the others, location/conditions are the same.  confusing!

[John Jones]

Using Honey B Healthy� to feed and/or treat honey bees -

We add 1 teaspoonful of HBH (ca 5 ml) to a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup in order to stimulate brood rearing, pollen collection and to initiate early spring development in honey bee colonies. We start feeding in mid-February and continue until the bees have nectar coming in and they begin to stop feeding on the HBH.
We add 2 teaspoonfuls of HBH (ca 10 ml) to a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup in order to improve the health of the colony, in casees of dysentery, PMS, chalk brood or other ailments. The stronger dose of spearmint and lemongrass oils seems to give the honey bee brood and adults greater tolerance or resistance to the ailments.
We add 4 teaspoonfuls of HBH (ca 20 ml) to a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup when we introduce queens, treat with formic acid or cause other disruptive disturbances to the hive. This is particularly useful for queen introduction (especially for queens with low genetic relationship as Russian Queens) and for reducing defensive behavior in particularly defensive colonies. We shake or spray syrup onto the brood frames and onto the queen cage before releasing the queen. We seldom lose queens when this method is used.
We apply some of the HBH syrup to our skin in order to reduce stinging behavior; when the tarsi touch the HBH, the bees fly off instead of stinging.
We add about 20% of HBH to 85-100 ml of 50% formic acid during fumigation of brood chambers for varroa and tracheal mite control.
We apply the stronger syrups to two colonies when combining them, in order to reduce defensive behavior of the workers.

from West Virginia University bee lab pages.

John Jones
Stone Mountain, Ga.

[Brian D. Bray]

Hello All:
Hive #1 was a nuc earlier this spring.  The original queen was rejected (may have swarmed though).  They reared a queen, she mated and started laying well. 

There may have been a lose queen in the package so the one in the cage was killed.

They then started rearing emergencies cells couple of weeks later.  They reared new cells, but after a couple of weeks of no eggs, I introduced a new queen.  They accepted her and she started laying. 

Then bees were either not happy with the queen or she was killed during inspection.

I checked one week later, could not find queen.  Eggs present, but also 2 emergency cells, almost capped.  Searched for queen, but didn't find her.  I will look again, but pretty sure she is gone as I'm getting fairly good at finding her when needed.

They selected the best egg candidates as possible queens, if either turns out unsatisfactory the cycle will probably be repeated.

Any suggestions as to what may be going on?  I will leave this hive alone and let them rear the emergency cells as they obviously need them.  But wonder what could be going on.  I'm not treating this hive differently from the others, location/conditions are the same.  confusing!

Reinforce the population by putting in a frame of brood from one of your other hives and to see if they build more queen cells.  More queen cells would be emergency and indicate they were not happy with the emergency queens already started.
BTW, when buying queens, find out from the queen supplier if he uses chemicals (Apistan, Mite-away, etc) in his operation.  If he does you can probably bet that any queen you get from him will be rejected or superceded quickly.  There is growing evidence that mite control chemicals, along with the host of others the bees are subjected to, has a detrimental effect on queens.

[Cindi]

The eggs in the hive means that the queen was present at least recently, three days prior.  If you don't find her, she is probably just hiding well.  I am amazed at how many times I can't find the queen, and then go through frames again and find her.  The almost capped queen cells, thing is, did they have an egg inside them?  Perhaps they were just practice queen cells.  My bees always make queen cups, and then those are gone next time I look.  Just my two cents on things that I see.  Beautiful and most wonderful day, lovin' life. Cindi

[Michael Bush]

A hive that keeps killing queens, probably has one or it has laying workers.  The best solution is always just a frame of open brood.  That way they can start a queen if needed but you haven't killed a perfectly good queen.  If they have laying workers you may need to repeat this every week for three weeks.  But after that it should straighten out.