Queenless in late August?

[Matt]

I had let my hives be for a few weeks after removing honey supers. Just had a look at them today and, lo and behold, broodless and (as far as I can tell) queenless. No eggs, no sealed brood. Still a lot of bees, though.

My question is: what can I do? It's my only hive. My guess is that it's too late in the year to order a new queen? Any ideas?

Thanks,

- Matt

[Thom]

Matt, it isn't too late to requeen. Some keepers replace their queens in the fall. They sometimes cost less in the fall.

[Matt]

Thanks for the info, Thom. Would you suggest just ordering one from Ruhl ($35! yikes), or is there a better option?

[Thom]

I'm sure you'll pay the same when you add shipping from other yards. It would be nice if someone had a queen bank around here.

[Steven]

I have extra queens available, they are from Kona Queen out of Hawaii the price is $14 each which is what I paid. If you need one let me know [phone], I have 25 +/- queens extra so if anyone else wants one to.

[Regina]

Hey Matt,
I found myself in the same situation, and I didn't requeen. Now I cannot tell if I still have a viable queen, or if I have laying workers. I guess I'll know soon, but I was wondering what happened to your hive.
-r

[drew]

If you still have bees in there now, I would quess you have a queen.

[Deleted]

Well, there were bees in there until early March (I'd see them buzzing around on warmer days), but by now they seem to have completely died out. No signs of disease, as far as I could tell - just natural dying out over the winter.

I cleaned the remaining dead bees (500-1000 of them, I'd say) out of the hive and will "install" (is there a better word?) a new package today, if all goes well. Here's hoping...

(I ended up not re-queening back in the fall, because I wasn't sure that the queen was really gone, and I also wasn't sure that the hive had enough bees to survive through the winter even with a new queen.)

- Matt