TOO FAR GONE TO REQUEEN?

[Rob]

I've been having a devil  of a time with a colony:
-  Poor performing queen,
-  Unsuccessful re-queening attempt,
-  Laying worker(s) (!),
-  Shook hive to roust out LW(s),
-  Second unsuccessful attempt to re-queen.

Colony's been queenless for about a month now, some (aging) foragers remain, but zero brood.

Is a 3rd attempt to requeen this one pointless?  Unfortunately, don't have a strong colony handy to combine with...

[BjornBee]

Normally I would suggest adding to another hive for laying workers, as I find shaking out bees fails many times, and you just prolong the misery all summer.

I would probably suggest the second method would be a queen introduction frame in cases where no other hive is present. It could take a few weeks for this process, but at least you would not lose queens and the season also.

I think shaking bees ranks up there in the top ten for the all-time worst advice for beekeeping. Your situation is something I have seen many times before.

Ideally at this point, finding some frames of brood or a small "booster" nuc might be the way to go, if you can find one locally. If it does not happen soon, they will not be ready for winter.

[kathyp]

shaking the hive out works great if you send them off to join other hives.  if you give them back the old hive the laying workers just fly home and commence laying again.

do you belong to a beekeeping club/group or maybe someone  here is close and could spare a frame of eggs/brood so that you could introduce a queen using a push in cage?

[Rob]

Thank you both for your comments.

I'm trying to rustle up some brood, but absent additional brood,  is re-queening now not a real option?  -  would I be asking the queen to lay eggs with no-one left (post shake) to care for and cap the larva, and then have the brood hatch out to an empty hive?

Re:  shaking the hive, clearly NOTa desirable (or pleasant) course of action, but what else is to be done if a colony has one or more laying workers, no queen and won't accept a new queen?

[kathyp]

you have no other hive?

[BjornBee]

shaking the hive out works great if you send them off to join other hives.  if you give them back the old hive the laying workers just fly home and commence laying again.

Good followup Kathy. I of course was commenting on shaking of bees and trying to save the original colony. I guess that needs to be pointed out for new beekeepers in the future. So I'll make a mental note on that. As if that will mean anything. 

Rob, your last question really only has one option or outcome....a dead hive. I don't think you have several weeks of resources left to use a queen introduction frame. And even if you did, I doubt they will be strong enough for winter prep.  So without new brood and bees from another hive, you might just be looking at a bad situation that has no real good endings....   You might just save your self the cost of the queen plus shipping, and many dollars and effort on sugar, and just use that money come spring on getting a strong local nuc with hardy northern genetics.