Southern Belle beekeeper in Atlanta needs advice.

[beewitch]

I have 2 new hives after apprenticing last year. One hive is doing great.  The other - not so much.  Cannot find the queen (even tho she was released), population is diminished, lots of dead bees at entrance and on the ground.  And ants!  Crawling everywhere.  Did the ants kill these new/weak bees?  I can find very little info on ants in beehives.  And should I requeen or wait to see if the 3 queen cells I saw work?
Thanks in advance for advice!

[Bee Happy]

Cinnamon in the inner cover and sprinkled around the outside of the hive will disorient the ants and "run them off" - I know this one firsthand. the bees don't mind it, and I try not to get it in the hive itself though. I would defer the queen question to someone else though, I'm just new at dealing with queen issues.

[beewitch]

Thanks for the cinnamon advice.  Seems to be working!

[Bee Happy]

  glad to be of help.

[Xperiment]

Open the hive and look for brood.   If you have no brood then they probably sent you an unmated queen.    Call them up and they'll send you a replacment asap before you lose too many bees to attrition.    You'll have to find and get rid of the existing queen when you install the new one.

Thanks for the cinnamon tip!  byb.

Yours,

[Cindi]

Beewitch, welcome to our forum, beautiful you found us.  Have a most wonderful day, health and life. Cindi