Is It Too Late To Save These BEES?

I'm in the forest apiary and something very, very strange is going on with one of my colonies. I've opened them up, they're bubbling out over the top. There's no queen, there's no brood. If you're seeing this in your beehives, today I'm going to show you how to fix it. So this colony here looks perfect. The entrance, the bees are buzzing away, huge amount of bees coming into the entrance. When I pop the crown board in a little bit, you'll see, you look in and the bees are bubbling over, but something is not right within this colony. There is no queen, there is no brood, no brood in any stages whatsoever, no eggs, larvae, anything capped over, but there is lots and lots of young bees. These aren't winter bees. Bees don't come through the winter this strong and then get to this point in the year and there's no brood. Doesn't work like that. So what I think's happened here is that in February, around that time, there was still a queen. She's laid up some of the first rounds of brood coming into the new season, and then she's popped her clogs, and for some reason they've not tried to requeen the colony. There's no sign of any cells in here whatsoever, even queen cells that they might have torn down. There's nothing, nothing at all. Luckily, this one here is the easiest one in the world to fix, so I'll get inside now and I'll show you exactly what the issue is. So as I said, from the entrance there you can see tons of activity, looks all nice and healthy, We pop the crown board and what do you think of that? I would say that is a healthy colony with bees, queen, brood in all stages, everything you want. A healthy colony of bees for this point in the year. What's interesting for me though is that I came into this colony about 2 weeks ago and they were definitely stronger than this. I know, I know, it's covering all of the frames there, but it was, it was bubbling over the top and they're not really bubbling over the top as much, so they are dwindling. Now, if you were just to leave this colony and do absolutely nothing with it, with no queen, no brood, no nothing, they would die. They would dwindle, and within a few weeks, maybe a month or so, there would be nothing left. Now, obviously, that's not what we want to happen, so I'm going to pull some frames out now, show you what we're seeing, and then show you why this is the easiest fix in all things beekeeping. So you can see here, I've got my bucket, soda crystals, lots of different hive tools in there. Nice and clean, give them a shake and we'll get in and pull some frames out. So you can see there, lots of stores, the bees haven't worked through them all, still not crystallized, but good to see that they've still got some stores. No issue with starvation and there's no issue with lack of income meaning that the queen in here is not laying. I'm confident there's no queen in here and as we go through the frames you'll see exactly why I think that. So again, another frame of stores there. I've just taken one out to give me a little bit of room to work, I can leave them all in the hive now. And then another frame with a bit of stores and then some empty cells where I would expect to see some eggs. So really nice, calm, gentle bees even without a queen. These are very nice. This was one of the artificially inseminated queens, so these are the daughters of an artificially inseminated queen, hence why they're very calm still even without a queen there. But unfortunately the queen on this one has died and I am left with basically nothing in the way of brood. So this frame here is the dead giveaway for me. Middle of the hive, it is empty. There is not a single thing in it. No eggs, no brood, no brood in all stages, can't see the queen, no stores, and no pollen. At this point of the year, okay, you might get 1 or 2 frames like that within a colony. You're not going to get 6 or 7 frames like that. So if you're going through and all you can find is empty frames with nothing in them, chances are the queen has Gone. So I'll try and get you a close-up. It's always a little bit difficult, but there is nothing in any of these cells. And if I take this frame here and shake the bees off, I can give you a look inside. And as you can see, nothing. We've not got anything in any of those cells. It's completely empty. So I'm still just going through the frames now. Nothing on them whatsoever. No brood, no queen. But what is quite apparent is there's lots of bees still. So there's no point in letting all of these bees dwindle away. Nothing wrong with this colony, and it's not a disease risk because there's still bees in here. If this was like no bees or just a fistful of bees, I'd be inclined just to close them up and treat it as a disease risk. But there's so many bees in here, the fix to get this colony back up and running is so, so simple. So the fix for this colony is very, very simple. It's adding in a mated queen. You don't need to go through the 8 to 10 day cycle because I'm confident there's no queen, there's no brood, They are hopelessly queenless already, so all you have to do is take this queen, pop the cage immediately, which is the 2 tabs down there, and then leave the bees to eat through that fondant and get the queen out, and you should have a successful introduction. For anyone who's not used these cages before, this tab here will only let worker bees in, and that big long tab there will only let the queen out. Other worker bees can go through there as well, but the queen cannot exit via this smaller hole. She has to go through this one. If she doesn't want to go through there, then go back in after 2 or 3 days and you can just open up the cage and toss her in. So then all I'm doing is I'm just taking that cage, I'm going to place it in the middle of where that brood should be, and then all I'm doing is just closing everything back up again. So you can see there, the bees immediately giving her attention. That queen pheromone is going to trigger to all the bees in here that she needs a feed, she needs some attention. They'll be going down feeding her, keeping her in good condition, and within, I would say, 24 hours they would have worked her out through those cages, and then she will be in the colony and she will take over. So then leave her for a few days, maybe 3 or 4 days. Normally I suggest 7, but in this instance you can do it a little bit sooner. And then what you're expecting to see when you come back is frames of eggs. Queens don't always immediately go back into lay, so maybe give it 1 or 2 weeks just to check that the queen's laying okay. But what you should expect to see is laid up frames of eggs generally towards the middle, and then you'll start to see the emergence of capped brood once again. Once you see eggs, once you see capped worker brood, this colony is good to go, and I think they need a super as soon as possible once that queen starts laying again.