Improperly mated queen

Signs or indications

General signs include poorly developing, weak colony; colony rearing reduced amount of brood; spotty brood pattern; lack of uniformity of brood within a brood area (mixture of brood ages); high drone numbers (relative to worker numbers); drones retained by colonies in the fall; drone rearing in worker cells; queen rearing shortly after queen begins apparent successful egg laying; sudden cessation of egg laying by queen.

Description

There is no accepted definition of improperly (poorly) mated queens or of an inferior queen. Sometimes seeing queen without well-defined retinue is an indication of an improperly mated queen. 

Some commonly listed characteristics of improperly mated, inferior, and/or failing queens are:

• queens that only lay unfertilized (drone) eggs
• queens that lay unfertilized eggs in worker cells (producing under-sized drones)
• queens that have patchy or spotty brood during the season when other queen brood patterns are normal
• queens that persistently lay more than one egg in a cell or place eggs on stored bee bread
• colonies in which queen rearing occurs after short time (within 1-4 weeks) of the introduction of a new queen
• colonies where queens “disappear” after successful egg laying has been observed
• lack of uniformity of similar brood age within the brood area
• queens that suddenly cease egg laying
• colonies that retain drone populations due to continuance of egg laying in drone cells late into the fall.

Most closely resembles

colonies not performing as expected

Resources

Lee K, et al. 2019. Is the Brood Pattern within a Honey Bee Colony a Reliable Indicator of Queen Quality? Insects 10(1): 12. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/10/1/12

“DETAILED Video about a Failing/Bad queen. How to tell you have one”. YouTube, uploaded by Dfishman76, 25 May 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lVvVorsZAQ

Moore P. 2019. Honey Bee Queens: Evaluating the Most Important Colony Member. Bee Health. Accessed 2023. https://bee-health.extension.org/honey-bee-queens-evaluating-the-most-important-colony-member/