Saturday I did an inspection of the East hive. It's honey-bound; there is too much honey and no room for brood. But more than that, I did not see any eggs, zero larvae except for a few drones that were almost ready and a scattered brood pattern.
The West hive has been steadily growing, and has a phat beard on the front these days. The East hive hasn't shrunk, but it hasn't been getting big like that. No SHBs! So, I ordered a Russian-Italian queen Saturday, which shipped today.
@33MHz I thought there was some mechanism whereby the absence of a queen triggered the formation of royal jelly and thus new queens. Or does that take too long?
@jeremycherfas a new queen can be reared from eggs that are less than 3 days old. Technically, there could still be a queen - the colony is nice enough after all. But I'm hedging my bets, getting a queen up front.
1) replace queen with young queen (some do this with every nuc regardless) 2) harvest one deep box of honey from the hive to make space 3) give them one frame of eggs or larvae from the other hive
@jeremycherfas It's a matter of scent. Even adult bees can change scent and join a new colony. But the older the bee, the less willing it will be to accept the new scent of a colony. If you dump queenless bees in a forest, some will join a new colony.