CATDOLL : CATDOLL: I just caught a swarm of bees but there is no queen. How do I keep them?

1. How to keep a swarm of bees if there is no queen?

Can't raise it.

A single bee should be considered a cell of an animal, and a bee colony is a complete animal. Without a queen, it is equivalent to brain death, and the bee colony is finished.

If a queenless bee colony is mixed with other colonies, it will be immediately attacked and eliminated, just like the rejection function of human cells.

If you want to assign a queen to a bee colony, that's fine, but the problem is that it's very difficult to find a queen. Even if you find a superfluous queen, it will inevitably destroy a new colony that is about to be born.

You said "I just caught a swarm of bees". Since it is a swarm of bees, they can gather together, which means they have a king. Bees without a king cannot gather together and fly all over the sky.

2. Can bees survive without a queen and only with young bees?

A colony with only young bees, or a queenless colony with many young bees, can be kept alive as long as it is properly raised and managed carefully.

Breeding method:

1. Intervene in the laying queen or cap the queen cell.

Second, continuously replenish young bees and an appropriate amount of capped combs.

When the colony strength reaches the scale of three bees, you can stop supplementing and switch to routine management. However, in daily management, you should focus on supplementary feeding and reward feeding.

It's hard to raise them because they don't have a king.

3. What to do if bees lose their queen?

For bee colonies that have lost their queens for a long time and have no eggs or larvae, larval combs can be transferred in first, and then egg-laying queens can be introduced by appropriate methods. If the apiary has no reserve egg-laying queens, the queen-less colonies should be merged into other colonies.

1. Introducing the Spawning King:

Different methods can be used to introduce egg-laying queens to queenless colonies according to different seasons and situations. Generally, in the high flow season, direct introduction can be used to introduce egg-laying queens that you have cultivated to queenless colonies. Before introducing the queen, all the queen cells in the queenless colonies should be destroyed. In the evening, carefully place the queen at the entrance of the queenless colony's nest and let it crawl into the hive by itself; you can also take out 1 to 2 frames of bees from the queenless colony, shake them off at the entrance, and take advantage of the confusion to put the queen in, and the queen will crawl into the hive with the worker bees.

When introducing a queen to a bee colony that has lost its queen for a long time and has many bees and few brood combs, the larval combs should be replenished 1 to 2 days in advance. To induce a queen to a strong colony, the beehive should be moved away from its original location, and some old bees should be separated before inducing the queen. When introducing a queen during the honey-breaking period, sugar should be fed to the queenless colony for two consecutive days before the introduction. For this type of colony, it is best to use the indirect introduction method of the queen. The queen can be temporarily locked in a queen-inducing cage, and after several days, the queen is recognized by the worker bees and then released. For expensive breeding queens, the young bee introduction method must be used. Move 2 to 3 old and mature brood combs that are leaving the room in the queenless colony to the super box, so that there are only young bees in the super box. The super box and the nest are separated by iron gauze, and the queen bee and the worker bees accompanying the queen bee are placed in the super box. After 2 to 3 days, when the number of bees leaving the room increases, the queen bee lays eggs, and the abdomen increases, all the royal cells in the nest box are destroyed and the iron gauze is removed. After the bee colony is connected from top to bottom, it is merged into one group.

2. Methods for dealing with worker bee egg-laying colonies:

When there are no egg larvae in the bee colony and there is no queen for a long time, the worker bees will lay eggs. Generally, the eggs laid by worker bees are small, with several eggs in one room, which is very irregular. Once this situation is discovered, a new queen should be introduced to the bee colony in time. When introducing a queen to the worker bee egg-laying group, it is best to introduce an old egg-laying queen, as the old egg-laying queen is more stable and not easy to be surrounded. When introducing, first take away the egg combs laid by the worker bees and replace them with 1 to 2 small larvae combs. After 1 to 2 days, remove all the emergency queen cells, and then introduce the queen into the bee colony by indirect introduction. While introducing the queen bee, reward and feed the bee colony. After the introduction is successful, if there are still eggs laid by worker bees on the combs, these nests can be irrigated with dilute sugar water. After the queen bee lays a large number of eggs, there are larvae in the nest, and the worker bees stop laying eggs by themselves.

4. What should bees do if they lose their queen bee in October when winter is approaching?

Just use honeycombs from another bee colony to rebuild the queen cell.

5. What to do with a bee colony without a queen bee?

If the bee colony has just lost its queen and there are still larvae and eggs on the honeycombs in the colony, the bees cannot sense the presence of the queen and will rush to build queen cells.

It is important to note that multiple queen cells will be produced if they are built urgently. Some people say that queen cells built urgently will not swarm, but they think that queen cells built urgently may swarm sometimes. A few days ago, I had a group of bees that swarmed because the queen bee failed to mate after mating, so the queen cells built urgently did.

So I think to be on the safe side, we should clean up the emergency queen cells on the honeycombs and only keep one emergency queen cell with a cap. Wait until the emergency queen in the emergency queen cell leaves the cell and successfully mates and lays eggs.

Note:

When the bee colony is strong, there are more worker bees in the colony, and brood combs can be transferred to the colony to allow the colony to urgently build queen cells. If there are fewer worker bees in the colony and the colony is weak, the beekeeper can only introduce a new queen bee into the colony.

At the same time, the bee colony needs to be fed and managed, because the queen bee begins to lay eggs and reproduce, and the bee colony needs worker bees to feed the larvae. The beekeeper feeds and manages the bee colony to help the worker bees reduce their workload of collecting food, and allows the limited worker bees in the colony to actively feed the larvae, helping the colony to cultivate more larvae.

6. How to keep bees without a queen bee?

1. Reasons for losing the king

The bee colony loses its queen for various reasons. In this case, you should pay attention to check whether there are queen cells or worker bee larvae in the colony. If so, you only need to feed them well. If conditions permit, you can add some sealed combs. After a while, a new queen will naturally appear in the colony.

2. Intervention of the New King

The most effective way to deal with a bee colony without a queen is to introduce a new queen. A relatively safe way to introduce a new queen into a queenless colony is to use a queen cage. However, you must be careful about the timing when introducing the queen. If the queen is introduced too early, the colony will easily reject the queen and surround her. If the queen is introduced too late, for example when worker bees have already laid eggs, the colony will not easily accept the queen. In addition, after the queen is successfully introduced, it is best to give a reward feeding.

3. Intervention of the queen cell

The queen cell is a temporary nest built by the bee colony to breed new queen bees. After the queen larvae in the queen cell emerge and mate, they can lay eggs and reproduce normally. However, the cycle of the queen cell is relatively longer and there are many uncertainties. The reason is that the queen bee in the queen cell can only reproduce normally after mating with drones. If there are no drones in the outside world at this time, the new queen bee may fail to mate. In addition, the new queen bee may fail to mate due to various reasons when she goes out to mate.

4. Transfer eggs and worms

The difference between worker bees and queen bees mainly comes from the difference in food. The queen bee feeds on royal jelly throughout her life, while the worker bees can only eat royal jelly in the first three days of the larval stage, and then they switch to eating ordinary bee food such as pollen, nectar, etc. If the worker bee larvae can continue to eat royal jelly, they can develop into queen bees. Therefore, when the bee colony loses its queen and has no queen bee or queen cells, some egg and larvae combs can be transferred in for the bee colony to "emergency build queen cells". If conditions permit, it is best to add some capped combs.

5. Merge into other groups

The death of the queen bee is a sign of the decline of the bee colony. If there is no demand for the number of bee colonies, the queenless colony can be merged into the colony with a queen. However, when merging colonies, care must be taken to prevent the two colonies from fighting. A relatively appropriate method is to separate the hive with a queen colony into two areas with thin paper, and then move the queenless colony to the area without bees. After the operation is completed, the bees on both sides are rewarded and fed once. After a while, the bees will bite through the thin paper in the middle and naturally merge together.

No, the queen bee is a must.

Beekeepers know that if a bee colony loses its queen, it will become restless and its work order will be disrupted after a few hours. About 20 days after the queen is lost, worker bees will lay eggs to replace the lost queen, but they can only hatch small drones, so the entire bee colony is in danger of extinction.

Queen Bee:

Its name is in name only, it does not give orders. The queen bee is a fully developed female bee whose only job is to lay eggs. She is the mother of thousands of members in the colony, so she is also called the queen bee. The queen bee's body is about 1/4 to 1/3 longer than that of a worker bee, and its weight is about twice that of a worker bee. It also has a longer lifespan, which can be 4 to 6 years. However, after about a year and a half after birth, the number of eggs laid gradually decreases and begins to decline.

Imagine that a bee colony often has tens of thousands of bees. How can they quickly discover that the queen is gone? It turns out that the queen's mandibular glands, dorsal glands on the abdomen, and tarsal glands on the feet can secrete a pheromone (external hormone) called "queen substance." Since worker bees often contact and feed the queen, and worker bees often pass food to each other, the queen substance is widely transmitted in the colony. It may let the whole colony know the existence of the queen through some physiological processes of the worker bees, so that the colony activities are normal. In addition, when the queen flies out of the nest for mating, this substance can also act as a sexual attractant for drones.

Drones are relatively stout, with underdeveloped male organs and particularly developed vision. They develop from unfertilized eggs. During the breeding season, each colony has at least several hundred to thousands of them. The life span of a drone can be as long as three or four months. It has no working ability and cannot even eat ready-made honey by itself. The English name of the drone is "drone", which means lazy man or parasite. However, drones are the mates of the new queen bee, and they are indispensable for the reproduction of the colony. However, when the virgin queen has successfully mated and the external nectar source begins to decrease, the worker bees stop feeding or even expel the drones.

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~