swarm cells or supercedure cells?

[gmh3]

Ok; i will try to be brief but detailed.

i just had to have bees last year and so in august i bought a 3 frame nuc (italian race) with a newly mated queen (marked) from local beekeeper.

I transferred the bees on the nuc frames to my deep box and added 7 frames of foundation and feed 2:1 syrup religously. when they had drawn that out , i added another deep box with 10 frames of foundation and feed again.

the hive when into winter with about 10,000 bees and 13 or so deep frames of capped honey.

i opened the hive 3 days ago and all is well!! bees are great. i could not find the marked queen ! i did find another queen and also about 4 or 5 queen cells.....

there was some brood in the bottom chamber but is was mostly older brood; the queen was in the top chamber and laying away.

i reversed chambers and added feed and a super of foundation.

i am in tennessee and bees are gathering pollen like mad; 50 - 70 degrees for the last 3 days and will continue for 3 or so more.

does all this sound normal?

thanks

[Robert Brenchley]

For the UK in early March, most abnormal! As for your climate, I can't comment. Where are the queen cells, in the centre of a comb, or on the edge? They've obviously replaced the queen, but will she be able to mate this early? Did you see any eggs?

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Regards,

Robert Brenchley

RSBrenchley@aol.com
Birmingham UK

[gmh3]

yes i saw plenty of brood and eggs, and larvae;

is there any chance that this is my old queen and the paint wore off?

[gmh3]

forgot to tell you that these cells were in the middle of combs;

what does that mean?

[cpecka]

If they are high on the frame I would say supercedure.

But if you have a very prolific queen, with lots of brood and no room to grow I'd take the swarm intervention precautions, such as the reversing you have already done.

Or, make the split and let the new Hive raise their new queen.

Do you have Drone Brood or mature Drones yet? That could be an issue for mating the queen. It never hurts to have a queen ordered in case she dosen't mate.

If you do split and eveything goes well you will reap the benefit of the additional hive as it will probably out pace your current one by June.

A simple Peasent

[Robert Brenchley]

I suspect that's a new queen, but no matter, she seems to be OK. If you want to split, leave her in one half and the cells in the other, or you could divide the hive into nucs and give them one cell each. It's probably better to leave only one cell in a new split; I tried giving them two last year and they swarmed on me. It sounds like the bees may be attempting to supersede the new queen, so she may not be too good; if you split and they raise cells a second time, just let them get on with it.

------------------
Regards,

Robert Brenchley

RSBrenchley@aol.com
Birmingham UK