Only two small patches of brood left at 60°N — is my queen shutting down for winter or failing?
Third year in Uppsala, four colonies. Inspected yesterday in a rare sunny afternoon and one colony has almost no brood: two palm-sized patches of capped brood on one frame, a handful of larvae, and I did find eggs, one per cell, standing up in the cell bottoms. The other three colonies still have three or four frames of brood and are clearly still laying properly.
The odd one has a 2024 queen, so she's in her third season. Bees cover about eight frames, stores are good, and they took syrup fine. I know laying slows down here in September, but this is so much less than the others that I'm nervous it's the queen and not the season. How do you tell a normal shutdown from a queen that's failing when both look like "less brood"? And if she is failing, is there anything I can do at this latitude now, or is it combine time?
What you reported points to seasonal, not failure. Failing queens give scattered brood, drone brood in worker cells, several eggs per cell or none at all. Yours has single eggs correctly placed and compact patches — a healthy queen laying slowly. Some queens stop early; Carnica lines shut down in September at your latitude and it's a virtue, they overwinter on less feed. What decides it for me is the bees: eight frames covered is a proper winter colony. Heft, leave her alone, and note her age for spring. If March shows the same tiny patch, then she goes.
SkaneBees · Sep 9, 2026
AlpineCarnica is right, LindenNora. A third-season queen tapering off earlier than the young ones next to her is exactly what old queens do in autumn, and it doesn't mean she'll fail in winter. Skåne queens keep going into October but Uppsala is a different world. The only thing I'd do now is nothing — a mated queen isn't getting anywhere at 60°N in September, so the choice is keep her or combine, and eight frames doesn't need combining.
HokkaidoHachi · Sep 10, 2026
Hokkaido is similar: my colonies stop brooding two or three weeks before the ones friends keep further south, and every year a beginner in our club panics about it. The eggs are your answer. A queen that's laying eggs properly, just fewer of them, is a queen that's reading the daylight.
LindenNora · Sep 10, 2026
Thank you — I hadn't thought about the bee count as the actual deciding number. Eight frames it is, she stays, and I've written "watch in March" on the roof. Feeder topped up tonight and I'll leave them be.