CATDOLL : CATDOLL: What happens if bees lose their queen?

What happens if bees have no queen bee?

The situation is different for different types of bees.

For bees, there is no way to produce new queens, so they can only fly around the hive in a disorderly manner, and finally go their separate ways, die alone, or be wiped out by other bee colonies before they disperse.

Of course, if artificially raised bees lose their queen bee, the situation will be much better. The beekeeper will dip a few pages of honey embryos in sugar water and put them into the hive. The bees will mistakenly think that the queen bee has returned and resume their normal production and life.

For larger wild bees such as native bees, flower bees, and wasps, they will select a new queen bee through fighting, and use the remaining royal jelly to help the new queen bee reach sexual maturity and become a true queen bee.

If you do nothing, it will scatter. The worker bees will slowly die.

If there is no queen bee in the [beehive], there is still hope. The worker bees will transform the worker beehive into a queen cell to raise the queen. Once the new queen is born and mates, the queen is successful.

Beekeeping knowledge: If a group of bees loses its queen, or replaces a bad queen with a good one, when introducing a new queen to the group, they often surround the queen or even bite the new queen to death. When introducing a queen to a group of bees, the queen to be introduced is first soaked in water, or sprayed with a sprayer, and then put into the bee colony. Because the queen bee is covered with water, she either stays still or moves slowly. At this time, many worker bees come over and lick the water off the queen bee. After the queen bee is wet, its own smell will temporarily disappear, and the worker bees will not reject the introduced queen bee as an outsider. I also noticed that individual bees have the nature of "compassion" for their own kind. When one or more bees are wet, many bees will lick the water off the wet bees; after the water dries, the foreign bees, or the queen bee, have the same smell as the bee colony. This method of introducing queen bees, whether it is a new queen or an old queen, has been successful. The queen bees and bee colonies used here are all Italian bees or their hybrids. Northeast black bees were not used for experiments. It is said that Northeast black bees are very good at rejecting queens. By the way, if you take a beehive to supplement another colony, or merge two colonies, according to the above-mentioned principle of introducing the new king, you only need to spray all the bees on the supplementary beehive to merge them. It will be safer if both sides are sprayed.

Hope this helps~

What should I do if the newly harvested bees do not have a queen bee?

Many people start beekeeping by collecting wild bees, but the embarrassing thing is that sometimes after collecting the bee colony, they find that there is no queen bee. Maybe it ran away, or it may be dead, but there is no queen bee. Should they give up on such a good colony of bees? In fact, it can be remedied. Let’s take a look at what to do if the bees you just collected do not have a queen bee!

1. Try to find the queen bee

When collecting bees, be sure to check whether there is a queen bee. Do not just pack up the bee cluster and run away. You are not stealing, so why be afraid? Just look slowly. If there is no queen bee in the bee cluster, look around the hive carefully. If you find the queen bee, today is your lucky day. If unfortunately you did not find the queen bee or only found the queen bee's corpse (be more gentle when collecting bees next time), do not run away in a hurry. Look for one more thing (a brood comb with eggs and larvae). If you find it, today is still your lucky day.

2. Try to obtain spleen

If you can't find the queen bee, you must find a brood comb with eggs and larvae, even if there is only one egg (in fact, it is absolutely impossible to have only one egg). After finding it, run away quickly, put the bee mass into the beehive after returning home, and put the brood comb into the beehive after fixing it on the nest frame, and then close the nest door. The worker bees will rush to build a queen cell to cultivate a new queen, and the bee colony will need to be fed with feed. The most unfortunate thing is that there is no queen bee and brood comb. What should I do? Don't be discouraged, there is still a way, read on!

3. Re-intervention of the New King

The most effective way to deal with newly collected bees that do not have a queen is to introduce a new queen. Before introducing the queen, spray some honey water or sugar water on the queen bee and the bee colony. Then place the queen bee on the periphery of the bee colony and let the queen bee slowly crawl into the bee colony. At this time, pay attention to the bee colony's acceptance of the new queen. If there is no phenomenon of surrounding the queen, it means that the bee colony has accepted the new queen. In a few days, the bee colony will return to normal order, with worker bees going to work and the queen bee laying eggs.

4. Intervention of mature queen cells

If there is no ready-made queen bee, you can also introduce a mature queen cell. The queen cell is simpler than the queen cell. If there is no queen cell, go to the nearby beekeeper's home to find one. I won't go into details about what the queen cell looks like. PS: If you are asked to go to the nearby beekeeper to find a queen cell, don't be silly and come back if you can't find one. Most of the time, you can't find a queen cell. If you can't find a queen cell and you don't have other bee colonies, you should "by the way" bring back some egg and larvae combs!

5. Add some eggs and worms

If none of the above items are found, the retrieved egg and larvae combs are very important. The operation method is the same as above. Put the egg and larvae combs into the bee colony, and the worker bees will rush to build a queen cell to cultivate a new queen bee. At the same time, feed them in time. After the new queen bee comes out and mates, the bee colony will start laying eggs (about 18 days), and the bee colony will return to normal order. PS: If possible, it is better to transfer some capped brood combs, which will be safer.

Note: Some people believe that a bee colony will definitely perish without a queen bee. In fact, it is quite common that newly harvested bees do not have a queen bee. If you can take correct remedial measures, the bee colony can be completely saved. It all depends on whether you have the skills!

Transferring brood combs: Fix the brood combs with eggs and larvae on the nest frame, then put them into the beehive and close the nest door. Usually, the worker bees will rush to build a queen cell to cultivate a new queen. Indirect introduction of queens: Before introducing a queen, spray a proper amount of honey water on the queen bee and the bee colony to confuse the colony smell, then place the new queen bee on the periphery of the bee colony and let it slowly crawl into the bee colony. Inserting queen cells: Fix the mature queen cell on the lower edge of the honey comb.

You need to find the brood comb with eggs and larvae and put it into the beehive, and you can choose a new queen bee.

If there is no queen bee, we have to cultivate one, which can take a long time to cultivate. Then these bees will have a new queen bee and can be managed better.