Scout Family Hive Inspection

I helped James and Sarah’s family start a hive at their house from a swarm.   The swarm was captured in Jay’s garden on May 14.   It sat in the nuc box in my yard until May 23 when we installed it in a hive behind their garage.  I helped Mike and Sarah inspect the hive on Memorial Day, following the Harvard Yard hive inspections.  Unfortunately, there is no evidence of a queen.   there is a good number of bees and they have been storing plenty of pollen and honey, but the hive will soon be honey bound and there are no brood.  Mike has decided to purchase a mated queen for the hive.  Another choice would have been to abandon the hive and simply combine it with another hive.   This would be fine except that they have only one hive and they would like to make a go of it.  Alternatively, we could allow the hive to proceed with no intervention in the hope that we were completely wrong and there is actually a laying queen in the hive but she just hasn’t started to work yet.  The risk of the hive simply dwindling away would be high in this case.  We will discuss the course of action and evaluate the outcome as the summer progresses.