NOW IS THE TIME TO CHECK YOUR HIVES AND SEE IF YOU NEED TO REPLACE YOUR QUEEN!
Key Signs to Replace Your Queen
- Patchy Brood Pattern: A healthy, productive queen lays eggs solidly across a frame. If you see an irregular, scattered pattern of capped brood mixed with empty cells, she may be failing.
- Drone-laying Queen: If you see worker cells containing drone brood (which are raised, bullet-shaped cappings) or multiple eggs in a single cell, the queen has run out of sperm or is unfertilized.
- Aggressive Hive: If your colony is excessively defensive and difficult to manage, introducing a new queen with calmer genetics can improve the hive’s temperament.
- Advanced Age: Queens typically live 2 to 3 years, but their egg-laying and pheromone production noticeably decline after the first or second year.
- No Eggs or Larvae: If you observe no eggs, no young larvae, and the bees are building emergency queen cells, the old queen may have died or left the hive.
PCBA Promotes purchasing live bees locally from reputable vendors. No matter what, you need to know the origin of your bees. Ask questions about your nucs, packages, and queens! You need to know if your new queen is a virgin queen or a mated queen? How old is she?