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theoreticallly, a hive can survive indefinitely. They can just keep making more brood and requeening with a new queen when the old queen stops laying. This is what I strive for with my hives. Sometimes I do intervene a bit rather than letting nature takes it's course. When a queen isn't laying as well as she should, I look to see if there are queen cells in the hive. If there are, I kill the old queen and let the hive raise a replacement queen. If there are no queen cells in the hive, I might steal a frame that has queen cells from another hive and put it in the hive with the weak queen. Then I kill off the old queen and let the bees raise their own new queen. This ensures there is always a strong queen in the hive.
Unfortunately sometimes a queen will die when there are no queen cells in the hive and if nobody intervenes, the hive will eventually die off. I have never had a hive fail when I let them raise a new queen. I have had a hive reject a purchased (Russian) queen. They stung her to death.
theoreticallly, a hive can survive indefinitely. They can just keep making more brood and requeening with a new queen when the old queen stops laying. This is what I strive for with my hives. Sometimes I do intervene a bit rather than letting nature takes it's course. When a queen isn't laying as well as she should, I look to see if there are queen cells in the hive. If there are, I kill the old queen and let the hive raise a replacement queen. If there are no queen cells in the hive, I might steal a frame that has queen cells from another hive and put it in the hive with the weak queen. Then I kill off the old queen and let the bees raise their own new queen. This ensures there is always a strong queen in the hive.
Unfortunately sometimes a queen will die when there are no queen cells in the hive and if nobody intervenes, the hive will eventually die off. I have never had a hive fail when I let them raise a new queen. I have had a hive reject a purchased (Russian) queen. They stung her to death.
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