Strong hive with drone cells.

[Ronnie Elliott]

I moved my bee yard 450-yards from where they were, and about 100-feet from my tractor barn. I couldn't find any queens today to put them in the alcohol. I did see one, but i reached for the queen catcher, and she evaporated into the maze. I spit the brood box into 5, & 5-frames. I will look in the morning to try to locate the old queens. I cut out 2-queens swarm cells from the bottom of a couple of frames. some drones were walking around. there was 1-frame that had a 5-inch square of capped drone cells. Should i take a scratcher, and open the cappings to expose the drone brood? Should i do anything, if anything with them?

[dickm]

Were these drones in worker cells in the middle of the comb? An infertile queen will do this.

dickm

[Michael Bush]

Maybe it's late enough there to have a serious amount of drone brood. Is there much worker brood?

[Ronnie Elliott]

Yes, there is plenty of capped brood. The drone cells or in one frame by them selves, and are off to one side, i think in the lower corner of the frame. Maybe a 5-6 inch square. Since i'm requeening should i remove the superceding cells, as well as the swarm cells? Do i need to uncap the drone cells, since the rest of the frame is capped brood?

[Michael Bush]

If you destroy the drones they will just use resources to make more. I'd leave them alone.

[bjerm2]

Yes remove the supersedure cells and the swarm cells. Leave the drones alone for now. If you do not remove the queen cells then the bees will not accept the new queen and will kill her. You can also remove a few frames of brood with queen cells, shake some bees onto the frames and thereby making another hive!
Dan