cut out -no brood

[NCA]

I did a cut out on a massive oak tree on Thursday and as soon as the tree cutters knocked it down we realized getting the bees out was going to be difficult.They called me the day before the tree was to come down so there was no time to do a trap out and there was a buyer for the trunk who needed it whole so cutting it up wasn't an option but they were nice enough to give me whatever time i needed to get the bees out once it was in there yard. The hive itself was about 6ft high and 2ft wide but it was woven through all the cracks in the hollow of the tree. We got the majority of it out after about 6 hours of work and were able to get the bees to relocate to a nuc box placed inside of the tree with some of there comb placed inside. There was plenty of honey and pollen stored up and it was a very healthy hive but we were never able to locate any brood lots of empty comb and old brood comb but nothing capped and the only comb left in the tree was fresh and unused we could see it just not able to reach it.

So what Im wondering is did i miss it somehow or is there a possibility that they had been queenless for some time.

[Jim 134]

Do you live in FL. MA. TX. ND:? Put your location in your proflie it will help you a lot.
  
 

   BEE HAPPY Jim 134  

[phil c]

Did you locate the Queen?

[NCA]

sorry ill fix that i live in Lompoc California and no i havent found the queen yet

[Jim 134]

Do you see flying bees (tree or nuc box) bring in pollen   If you see pollen come in most like lee you got a Queen.



  BEE HAPPY Jim 134  

[NCA]

ill have to observe them in the day time i placed the nuc in the tree a few days ago then retrieved it earlier tonight i could see bees at the opening and hear them inside but i haven't looked inside yet and there were no bees left in the tree trunk.
 
 These bees were really beat up through all this, the wood cutters did the best they could to help save this hive and were very sympathetic to what i was trying to do but at the end of the day they still have there job to do as well.     

[JP]

Don't worry that you didn't find brood, look at what they are doing now. There are a number of reasons we could speculate as to why you didn't see brood but now focus on what's in the nuc.

Feed them and gauge their progress. As Jim mentioned a good sign is bringing in pollen but give them some time and then go through the nuc to see what's happening, eggs larvae, that's what you are looking for as well as a queen.


...JP