do bees move eggs/larvae for queens cells?

[B. Haning]

One of my nucs is trying to raise a queen and I am trying to introduce a purchased queen. I gave them a frame of brood to keep them busy while the new queen was shipped. The queen cells were on the frame of brood I offered and on another frame that had no other brood that did not come from another hive. So can bees move an egg/larvae? If not I must have a queen in the nuc that is laying sporadically.

[Brent Bean]

I am not aware that they will move eggs, there isn’t really any need for them to do this activity. They can raise a queen anywhere available larva is located.
If you are trying to introduce a new queen and queen cells are present or a laying queen in present they will ignore the caged queen or ball the cage and eventually kill her or let her starve.
Prior to introducing a caged queen destroy any queen cells present and make very sure you don’t have a laying queen. wait a few hours then introduce your store bought queen. Good luck

[B. Haning]

Brent, Thanks for your help.
Ben

[BjornBee]

Do we really know for sure....

I 've seen bees, African to be precise, use insurptation to take over a hive. I've seen bees in Japan, lure giant hornets in so the colony can kill the intruder before it can notify the rest of the hornets that are so eager to kill the honeybee colony. I've seen bees beg to be be groomed from mites.

In looking at all the wonderful things that bees do.....I can only imagine that in millions of years of evolving, why would I not think that bees have the capability to pick up an egg and move it. All the things they can do that amazes us everyday, and they can not pick up an egg and move it. No way!

We can easily look back 50 years or 200 years ago, and can provide many examples of things that the beekeepers of those days were ignorant of. At one time the "king" bee ruled the hive. Oh, and how people scoffed when it was suggested that the queen got mated with a Mongolian cluster of drones. It wasn't that long ago that people actually built "mating boxes" for placement of the queens and drones into.

So what will people 50 years look back and laugh at that we are ignorant of?

In knowing that bees will rob other hives, I can probably even believe that bees could, in some amazing way, steal an egg to perpetuate thier own existence. Sounds wacky huh? But wouldn't it be a hoot that something like this happens, instead of thinking bees can get an infertile egg provided by a worker bee, and turn it into a fertile queen. Of course this at one time was scoffed at also. But it helps for some if people like "Dee" tells fabulous stories of such tales. Then everything is possible.

Bees can build wax, tear down cell, rip paper plates apart, drag each others dead corpse through the hive, among other things......but I have heard time and time again, that bees simply can not pick up a simple egg and move it. You would think that a simple task such as this would be easy for them.

I have seen bees build queen cells FROM QUEEN CUPS and then confine the queen to the other side of the hive, deciding later to ball and kill the queen, or force her into swarming, all the while planning for such things without the queen knowing. You would think that possibly or perhaps the queen did not lay that egg herself, but maybe it was placed by a worker with motives to do so.

Of all the things I have seen with bees, I can not fathom that bees can not move an egg.

Now where is that SARE grant form at....

[okb]

I vote "YES" they can and do. But Ive never seen it done but belive that I have seen the results.

[Troy]

I've not seen this myself, but a local beek tells me she has seen it first hand.

She did a trap out and put a box of drawn but empty comb there and one frame of young brood and eggs for them to make a queen with.

They made a queen, but not on the frame of eggs and brood, but on the next one over. So they had to have moved it for some reason. Maybe it was too crowded on the given frame to build a queen cell. They had more room on the other one and so they moved it (egg or larvae) there instead.

[ScadsOBees]

Unless you are witnessing thelytoky .

[hankdog1]

Do we really know for sure....

I 've seen bees, African to be precise, use insurptation to take over a hive. I've seen bees in Japan, lure giant hornets in so the colony can kill the intruder before it can notify the rest of the hornets that are so eager to kill the honeybee colony. I've seen bees beg to be be groomed from mites.

In looking at all the wonderful things that bees do.....I can only imagine that in millions of years of evolving, why would I not think that bees have the capability to pick up an egg and move it. All the things they can do that amazes us everyday, and they can not pick up an egg and move it. No way!

We can easily look back 50 years or 200 years ago, and can provide many examples of things that the beekeepers of those days were ignorant of. At one time the "king" bee ruled the hive. Oh, and how people scoffed when it was suggested that the queen got mated with a Mongolian cluster of drones. It wasn't that long ago that people actually built "mating boxes" for placement of the queens and drones into.

So what will people 50 years look back and laugh at that we are ignorant of?

In knowing that bees will rob other hives, I can probably even believe that bees could, in some amazing way, steal an egg to perpetuate thier own existence. Sounds wacky huh? But wouldn't it be a hoot that something like this happens, instead of thinking bees can get an infertile egg provided by a worker bee, and turn it into a fertile queen. Of course this at one time was scoffed at also. But it helps for some if people like "Dee" tells fabulous stories of such tales. Then everything is possible.

Bees can build wax, tear down cell, rip paper plates apart, drag each others dead corpse through the hive, among other things......but I have heard time and time again, that bees simply can not pick up a simple egg and move it. You would think that a simple task such as this would be easy for them.

I have seen bees build queen cells FROM QUEEN CUPS and then confine the queen to the other side of the hive, deciding later to ball and kill the queen, or force her into swarming, all the while planning for such things without the queen knowing. You would think that possibly or perhaps the queen did not lay that egg herself, but maybe it was placed by a worker with motives to do so.

Of all the things I have seen with bees, I can not fathom that bees can not move an egg.

Now where is that SARE grant form at....

Oddly enough the robbing an egg idea has crossed my mind to as i had a hive full of capped drone cells and full of queen cells no worker cells. My only thought is if the queen hadn't just dropped a few worker eggs then they had to get eggs somewhere. The hive next door maybe? Who knows but it's definately a possability.