My BMH Queen died in the cage as well. The cage exit is split into two and the Queen can only exit through the larger side. The bees ate the fondant on the smaller side then lost interest, leaving her stuck in the cage.
All the smaller hives should have thin syrup on along with pollen patties. A well fed hive has a higher acceptance rate. For whatever reason a staved hive is more likely to reject. How is the pollen in the frames? Without pollen coming in the nurse bees will eat her eggs as fast as she lays them. You likely have an inertial queen, cull her. Also the hive at 5:00 has to low of a population for a 10 frame super. Hope this helps.
I've experienced similar, I had 5 queens from bmh one nuc died and didn't release the queen same as you 2 were accepted and 2 just vanished so I had to unite them. I'm going to be making splits but really contemplating letting them rear there own queen as it starts getting expensive.
Oh that’s quite comforting to know I thought it was something we had done! I’m glad I’m not the only one! We normally let them make their own Queen as well but our colonies have only just started making drones so I didn’t want to risk it!
My BMH Queen died in the cage as well. The cage exit is split into two and the Queen can only exit through the larger side. The bees ate the fondant on the smaller side then lost interest, leaving her stuck in the cage.
The accepted queen is possibly not laying because there is not a nectar flow, feeding this colony may actually change that.
Thank you I’ll give that a try!
All the smaller hives should have thin syrup on along with pollen patties. A well fed hive has a higher acceptance rate. For whatever reason a staved hive is more likely to reject. How is the pollen in the frames? Without pollen coming in the nurse bees will eat her eggs as fast as she lays them. You likely have an inertial queen, cull her. Also the hive at 5:00 has to low of a population for a 10 frame super. Hope this helps.
Ah right that makes sense thank you! Any advice is much appreciated 😃
I would leave a cage in for three or four days and if the bees haven't eaten the fondant to let her out then I would let her out anyway.
Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind next time! 😃
I've experienced similar, I had 5 queens from bmh one nuc died and didn't release the queen same as you 2 were accepted and 2 just vanished so I had to unite them. I'm going to be making splits but really contemplating letting them rear there own queen as it starts getting expensive.
Oh that’s quite comforting to know I thought it was something we had done! I’m glad I’m not the only one! We normally let them make their own Queen as well but our colonies have only just started making drones so I didn’t want to risk it!