hive inspection

[Peggy Lyttle]

I inspected all 3 hives today and found:

Hive #1, Package 04/09/09, last inspected 4/22/09; added 2nd hive body 4/25/09, no activity in 2nd hive body....brood present, nectar & pollen stored, new honey stored, did not see queen

Hive #2, package 04/09/09, last inspected 04/22/09; added 2nd hive body 04/25/09, no activity in 2nd hive body...no brood found, queen cells present, one or 2 look like a queen has emerged, several more queen cells on more than 1 frame, several frames heavy with honey, waiting for husband to come home so he can see it....what should we do....try to find a queen as I did not see one...but did not pull every frame, cull the remaining queen cells if we find a queen.....HELP

Hive #3, nuc 04/24/09, added 2nd hive body 04/26/09, first inspection, brood present, pulling new comb in outer frames in hive body A (lower), lots of nectar, pollen, honey stored

None of the hives were aggressive.

Please help in ref to hive #2

[RayMarler]

It sounds like queen has emerged. At this point, I'd say wait and let that hive do what ever it does. Leave it alone for 2 weeks before inspecting again.

You said one or two cells emerged? A good queen cell emerge is with a round hole in the tip of the cell. If they are not going to swarm, the first queen hatching normally is the queen that will take over the hive. The workers will tear open the sides of remaining cells and the chosen queen will sting the queens inside. If the cells are young enough to not be a formed queen yet, the bees will tear open the sides and discard the underdeveloped pupa inside.

[BoBn]

I inspected all 3 hives today and found:

Hive #2 ...no brood found, queen cells present, one or 2 look like a queen has emerged, several more queen cells on more than 1 frame,.....HELP

Please help in ref to hive #2

Its only been about 4 weeks since the package was installed.
I would suspect #2 may be queenless. I would take a frame with some eggs from one of the other hives and put it into the middle of hive #2. If they are queenless, they will build new queen cells in a few days with the young larvae on the added frame.