Worries about this queen cup

[garprob]

Newbie here- need a little advice.

Just did a hive inspection today- the hive is constrcted like this:
2 deep hive bodies, queen excluder, and a medium super on top.

The super has some drawn comb on about 5 of the 10 frames and each frame is less than 50% drawn. There is some nectar in the comb that has been drawn.

The top deep hive body contains mostly capped honey, little pollen, and little brood including a frame with some eggs.

The lower deep hive body has a couple of frames on the ends that contain capped honey. The rest of the frames are full of pollen and brood- including a fair amont of eggs. Did not see the queen but I assume she is around.

Now for the question- On one of the frames in the bottom deep I found 1 queen cup 1/2 to 2/3 of the way down on the edge- the only qeen cup in the hive this time. It was open and when I tried to peek inside it didn't look like the other empty queen cups I have seen before. I decided to destroy it with the hive tool and squished out a bunch of white goo. What is the white goo? Is it something to worry about or can I relax about it?

Thanks!

[JAK]

That white goo happens to be royal jelly!

Welcome to upkeep and maintenance on your hive.

Best of luck,

JAK

[garprob]

Ah... Royal Jelly! I should have realized that, I'm sure. So now the question is- Since they were planning on using the queen cup to raise a queen, Is there something going on I need to worry about? I don't want them to swarm- what exactly would I do to prevent that? And why was there only one? I thought that, whether they were swarming or superceding, they made several queen cells.

[wcubed]

Have seen colonies rear a supercedure queen with a single cell many times. On at least two occasions, the single cell was damaged by inspection, and the colony went queenless. That's a function of whether or not they have terminated the old queen. If you still have eggs, they can start over.

Micheal Bush does his best to discourage you beginners from destroying Q cells, but you persist. All Q cells are not bad. Supercedure cells are in your best interest - the colony has better awareness of queen performance than you can see.

A single SS cell seems reckless on the part of the colony, but my records indicate that they are successful about 95% of the time. (When the bumbling beek does not get in the way)

I apologize for taking my wrath out on you, but I tire of seeing thread after thread where the first reaction to a queen cell(s) is to demolish them.

Am not one of the "well wishers" on this forum, but since I have badgered you unnesessarily, I wish you well.

Walt

[peletier]

WCUBED says it well. The bees are very good hive managers. Their methods sometimes interfere with the beekeepers objectives but that is our problem, not theirs. Your queen cell was built for a reason, a BEE reason. It could have been an insurance thing and never been capped. It could be they sensed a problem with the queen and were going to supercede. If they were serious about that, I would expect more than one cell but who knows what a bee is thinking.

I checked out your blog. Your two colonies look strong. Your description of the combs sounds "textbook". In your situation.....two new hives, new beekeeper... it would have been better to leave the q-cell and watch what happens. I'll bet you see more.

Just one more thing. I have tried to out-think the bees on occasion. Once I had a colony build supercedure cells but the queen was laying fine (at least to my eye). I decided to let them raise a new one and I would give the old one to a friend. Nothing apparently wrong with her right!? She died the next day. Two weeks ago a bee-club member called saying he had an extra queen. His hive was not happy with her and was building cells but she seemed fine and might be a temporary fix for someone. I told him to bring her to the meeting next day and someone would take her. She died before he could bring her in. HOW DO THEY KNOW?:scratch:

[beyondthesidewalks]

I apologize for taking my wrath out on you, but I tire of seeing thread after thread where the first reaction to a queen cell(s) is to demolish them.

Ditto. It's sad to see so many folks lose a hive to their own ill advised actions. I recently started a thread about The Hive and the Honey Bee edition that I'm reading stating that abouty 50% of the time, the bees don't even use their queen cells. For the begining beekeeper, those are much better odds than removing cells and risking losing the hive which seems to be a sure thing. Bees build queen cells for a reason. If they're supercedure cells they are in your best interests. If they're swarm cells they are not in your best interests but I'm not sure that cutting the cells is in your best interests. Once bees have swarming on their collective mind, I don't think there's much a beekeeper can do about it. Cutting out queen cells doesn't seem to remedy that problem. Only makes it worse.

I will say that I hope this situation works out for you. I hate to see any beekeeper lose their bees, especially a beginner.

[garprob]

Oops- looks like I screwed up! Hmmm, guess I will hope for the best. Live and learn, I guess. Thanks to you all for the words of wisdom. Learned a good lesson and will move forward frome here.

[alpha6]

Once bees have swarming on their collective mind, I don't think there's much a beekeeper can do about it.

There are many things a beek can do to prevent swarming. Swarming is usually caused by overcrowding and can be alleviated by (a) giving them plenty of room and (b) splitting them, which is in fact an artificial swarm (at least in the bees mind). The key is to watch and take action before your hive gets into swarm mode. This means planning on hard splits in the spring and giving them lots of room as they build back up during the summer.

[RayMarler]

I'm thinking the queen excluder should be removed. The brood won't move up there this time of year with nectar being stored in the upper broodbox. Removing the excluder will help them move nectar up for storing above the broodnest.

[franktrujillo]

yea, I would have keep the supercedure cell..In fact i would keep all new queen swam cups also...you have to remove/protect them before one hatches.....good for sale/starting new colonies......you should check to see if they made new cups if not add a frame of eggs no bees...so if the queen is still alive they don't ball her.....:popcorn: