I installed two packages of bees last Thursday one hive is doing great they have nectar,pollen and eggs on a frame. The second package has nectar and pollen in a frame no eggs and I can’t find a queen plus they are very loud I think they are queenles. Would you wait another day or two or do a newspaper combine of the two hives before I lose the one hive completely. We have weather coming in the next two days

Honey bees are not native to the US, but we have 4000 species of bees here, and 20,000 species in our world. Just heard this on XM radio program.

Anybody got mites? Anybody not have mites?

I would check again to see if you can find a queen. If not order a new one and they should have it to you in two days. I have done it before, and they should be good for several days. If there are not many bees she may have swarmed, and you might as well combine.

8 days since install?

Did you do a delayed or direct release of the queen?

Delayed would put it at Saturday or Sunday for release.

The issue with packages is that the queen is added to bees shaken from multiple colonies so she will not be immediately accepted by the bees. Hence the reason she is caged for her protection and the need for a delayed release to allow time for the bees to accept her.

Sometimes it's not long enough and she gets balled and killed upon release.

Sometimes it takes time for her to start laying but the roar you describe is an indicator that they may be queenless, aggression would be another.

I would give them no more than another week at most before attempting to rectify the situation. But more likely do something this weekend.

You have three options.

Newspaper combine as you suggest.

Ordering a new queen.

Shifting a frame of eggs from the queenright colony IF they can spare it. But in this case they probably can't. If you know a beekeeper in your area you may be able to acquire a frame of eggs or even a queen cell.

I would opt for the latter two before doing a combine as going down to one colony is literally putting all of your eggs into one basket.

Warrior nailed it.

I have never bought bees except for a few queens. It's swarm seasion buy or build you some traps, buy swarms or established nukes from someone in your area. I never thought package bees sounded like a good idea.

I have to wait tell it gers dark befor I can head home tonight. I have to go take down one of my swarm traps that has a swarm bringing in pollen. That makes 2 in swarm traps for the year probably more when I go check on them.

At some point you will get to the # of hives you want and end up having extra bees weather from swarms caught or splits for swarm control.

The easiest way to tell if you are queen less is to take the frame with eggs on it from the good hive and shake all the bees off and then place it in the one you think is queen less. Come back in 4 days and if they have drawn queen cells out then it is queen less.

In this case I’d say the third option given by gregh is decent for a new person to tell if queenless. Warriors thought of using a brood egg frame to make a queen is likely going to be problematic for you right now. Not knocking concept but it’s barely out of winter up here. I just walked in from going thru a couple hundred hives and there are the bees to raise queens but we don’t have an adequate population of correct aged drones to get it done just yet. We are likely a week out and I guess your weather is awful similar. A frame of eggs might buy you some time though if you needed to wait on a queen. FYI you’ll might be hard pressed to find any queens to ship in. Last week I contacteda dozen or so places and the soonest was around May 10th

I have a swarm trap out. No action yet there I do have two Nucs coming in a week. Just worried if I don’t do something today I’m going to loss a hive. I’m thinking I’m doing the newspaper combine. I did a delayed release of the queen but maybe they did chew her out early then killed her i spent a hour looking for the queen today I’m 90% sure she is not in there

In that case cut your losses and do a combine. It'll boost the one and you got the nucs coming. Just didn't want to see you down to just the one. And if all goes well you might even be able to do a summer split to get your count back up.

Yeah, just noticed PA. Don't know where y'all are on drones yet. No need making queens if you ain't got the drones to get her mated.

I would do what Gregh said. Go to good hive and shake all bees off a frame with eggs under 3 days old. Place that frame in suspect hive and you will know if they pull queen cells out. That is if you are still seeing good number of bees from the package and just not the queen. You still need good numbers of bees to pull cells out and feed royal jelly to replace the queen.

I just installed 12 new queens yesterday into some nucs I made up and will check to make sure they are all out of the queen cages tomorrow. I just worked my hives and hung 3 scions up baited with lemongrass oil paste wax and baited 7 empty hives with lemongrass oil wax paste and old drawn combs to try and keep my swarms at home I miss. First week of May is rather hectic around here in the bee yard...

I purchased my queens through Lappes this year and they all were very much alive and in good shape along with attendant bees. I am not promoting any company but just had good results with this shipment of queens. Next year will raise my own as we just grafted 600 cells and put in queen builder colonies 2 weeks ago using some AI'ed queens with good mite resistance.

I should add - feed, feed, feed a new package as they will take all you give them to pull comb if you are just building foundation.

Another tip I tried today after watching the master grafter last week. I got stung 3 times today on my bare hands as I can't stand losing dexterity with my bee gloves on. I tried some cheap blue surgical gloves and they worked excellent and no more stings with full dexterity on my hands. Hands sweat in them but I like being able to feel everything and grip frames and pick up queens with my fingers...

I only do nitrile if handling miticides otherwise it's bare handed unless the bees make me reach for my goatskin ones. I sweat to much to wear nitrile more than I have to.

I’m going to do the combine early tomorrow hopefully weather holds off till I get it done thank you