Will a Bee Colony Fly in Disarray Without a Queen Bee? How to Resolve the Queenless State of a Bee Colony?
The Importance of the Queen Bee
The queen bee is the pivotal figure in a bee colony, playing an essential role in the functioning of the bee society. It can be said to be the source of life, primarily responsible for laying eggs to reproduce offspring and maintain the continuous vitality of the entire colony. Whether it is the hardworking worker bees, the mighty drones, or the new generation of queen bees, they are all hatched and nurtured from the eggs laid by her. Therefore, the importance of the queen is self-evident. If a swarm of bees loses its queen and does not take relevant measures for remediation, then that swarm of bees will eventually perish.
How Does a Queenless Colony Behave?
Friends who have kept bees know that we need to deal with it in time after the swarm loses its queen. What is the state of a queenless colony? Does the swarm immediately fall into chaos and become a disorganized mess after losing the queen? In fact, although the queen’s position is irreplaceable, a queenless colony still maintains its order of life for a period of time. Scout bees will continue to guard the hive, and forager bees will continue to collect nectar and pollen, carrying out the daily work of making honey, as if to tell us that even without a leader, they can still be self-reliant.
However, without timely artificial intervention, their future will be full of uncertainties. When environmental conditions are favorable, the colony can quickly adjust, urgently build queen cells, and re-nurture a new queen to continue leading this united colony. But more often, due to various unfavorable factors, the colony may gradually decline and eventually disappear in nature due to the death of the queen.
How to Deal with a Queenless Colony
Introduce a Queen: Faced with the situation of a queenless colony, beekeepers have various remedial measures to choose from. First, a new queen can be introduced to become the new leader of the colony, allowing the colony to resume production and life order, and lead the colony to grow and develop. Introducing a queen can be done directly or indirectly, and both methods require the new queen to be accepted by the colony, fed without causing the bees to swarm around the queen, indicating that the queen introduction is successful.
Introduce a Mature Queen Cell: In addition to introducing a new queen, a mature queen cell can also be introduced, which can also solve the problem of the colony losing its queen. The specific operation is to select a mature queen cell from another colony and quickly fix it under the edge of the brood comb. When the new queen emerges from the cell, mates with the drones, and returns to the hive, the colony can resume its normal life order.
Transfer Brood Frames: If the queenless colony has already started to lay worker eggs, beekeepers can first transfer brood frames with eggs and larvae to stabilize the worker bees’ emotions, clean the worker-laid brood frames, and then introduce a laying queen.
