hive is bulding a queen cell...what next

[zenbeekeeper]

OK I installed my package three weeks ago and I have done a check a week since they have been installed. I have yet to see the queen however, I do see brude, pollen, and honey cells in the bottom medium. At week two, since frame 1 and 8 were built out, I added another 8 frame medium and they have the center three frames drawn out with some honey and pollen in them but no brude. Today I see more capped brude and what looks like a queen cell in the bottom brude box on the center frame. The hive is still calm and they are not acting like they are queen less.

My question is, should this be something to worry about and should I remove it or should I just let them build a new queen?

Thanks...

[tsk]

Probably let them build it. Is it on the face of comb or on the bottom of a frame? Most likely it's a supercedural cell (face of comb) to replace the queen you got not a swarm cell (bottom of frame). Lots of package queens get replaced...

[Oldtimer]

Because of the drama package bees go through, they sometimes, as it were, blame the queen, and decide to make a new one.

Very occasionally there really is something wrong with the queen, and you need to let the bees go ahead and replace her. But mostly with a new package, there is nothing wrong with the queen it's just the bees reacting to overall circumstances. Trouble is, how to know. If the brood looks normal and all seems well, your queen is likely OK.

However, if you wish you can choose to allow the queen cell in your hive to take over as a new queen. You don't need to do anything what will happen is the queen cell will hatch, and as per normal procedure when bees are superseding their queen, they normally will not allow the new virgin to kill the existing queen. The virgin will mate and begin laying eggs, and for a time there will be two queens in your hive. But the older queen will gradually be neglected by the bees and over a few months, fade away.

If you really want to, and have enough bees, you can find the two queens and split your hive into two. Around 6 weeks from now you should be able to go through your hive and find two laying queens. Although there might only be one, if the new queen failed to mate, or if the old queen was killed off quickly. But mostly, at that point in time, you would find two queens.

[KQ6AR]

I'm with oldtimer, if I get new bees package/swarm & they start building queen cells right away I destroy them.
If they start building them again, I let them have their way.

[zenbeekeeper]

THe queen cell is on the face of the comb at the top of the frame. By brude pattern is good and there is a good bit of it in the lower super. These photos are from my week two check there was a good bit of non caped larva in both 3 and 4. THe pattern looks good?

Frame 4/Center frams


The frame is now full of caped brude and some hatched cells as well.

[cheryl anne]

i had queen cells last year but they were not capped, just emergency cells "incase". look to see if the cells have eggs or are capped off. this year i had 5 capped queen cells and then they swarmed with the old queen. i let them re queen themselves and now i have a new laying queen, yeah! it helps to have a mentor to look at these things. also in louisville the kyanabees.com is the local bee keeping club there is lots of experience there.
cheryl

[Oldtimer]

THe pattern looks good?

Looks to me like the queen's fine. You could take the advise of KQ6AR & destroy the queen cells, but later if the bees persist and build more, let them.

Having said that there's a lot of people think the bees should do their own thing, so whatever you want. just, getting shaken into packages with strange bees, being shipped, shaken into a new hive of foundation with a new queen, is not exactly doing their own thing. That's why they sometimes decide to replace their queen when they didn't actually need to.

[zenbeekeeper]

Thanks for all the information. Since my whole theory here is to let the bees be bees and not inter-fear into their natural behavior as much as possible, I have decided to not remove this sell. As Oldtimer stated the queen looks to be good since I have a good brude pattern and there are more frames with brude since my 2 week check.

From talking with other local keepers it seems that if they do build another queen then the old one will either kill the new one or she will take over and the original queen will leave.

[Oldtimer]

Sounds very Zen.

[Michael Bush]

When I have tried to out think the bees it usually backfires. She may be laying fine but not producing the right pheromones. They may be blaming her for something that isn't her fault and they may change their mind. If you leave it what do you have to lose? If you remove it they could end up hopelessly queenless.

[Joseph Clemens]

Are you saying that there is a queen cell near the top center of the frame in the photo below?

...

Frame 4/Center frams


The frame is now full of caped brude and some hatched cells as well.

[zenbeekeeper]

Are you saying that there is a queen cell near the top center of the frame in the photo below?

No that is my first two week check. I'll take a photo this weekend when I go back into the hive.

[mrobinson]

I would frankly do nothing for several weeks and simply let this new package establish itself as a fully operational and self-sustaining hive. You have already clearly established that they are now well on their way. Let them do absolutely anything they wish to, without intervention. Observe what they are doing from the outside, but, other than that, "don't monkey with it." It's clear that they have everything that they need, drawing from nature alone, and so feeding them etc. is probably unnecessary at this point. There's nothing else, probably, that you need to do in the short run. Just let 'em "bee" now.

[zenbeekeeper]

I would frankly do nothing for several weeks and simply let this new package establish itself as a fully operational and self-sustaining hive. You have already clearly established that they are now well on their way. Let them do absolutely anything they wish to, without intervention. Observe what they are doing from the outside, but, other than that, "don't monkey with it." It's clear that they have everything that they need, drawing from nature alone, and so feeding them etc. is probably unnecessary at this point. There's nothing else, probably, that you need to do in the short run. Just let 'em "bee" now.

So you are saying to remove the feeder now or wait until they get the comb build out in the brude chamber (3 medium supers)?

[jadell]

So you are saying to remove the feeder now or wait until they get the comb build out in the brude chamber (3 medium supers)?

Some people do, and some don't. It's up to you and your philosophy. You should definitely remove it if they are backfilling the brood chamber with syrup. They will swarm if you don't.

[jadell]

... Just let 'em "bee" now.

If it was up to you, new beekeepers wouldn't learn a thing and just guess at what's going on in the hive. Myself and several others have tried to thwart your "just leave 'em alone" advice on other threads. Please stop trying to keep new beekeepers from getting inside and learning, that's the only way to do it. Yes, there is a point where entry is excessive, but learning by watching from the outside will only get you so far. Each lesson that is learned from opening the hive by a new beek is invaluable for a lifetime of success with bees, at least, they were for me and plenty of others when our hives were new. Like I've said before, we've all been there, except you I suppose. I suppose you wouldn't fix cross comb either since you would let them do "anything they wish," which is just bad advice. This doesn't require a response, and I definitely will not respond if it's hostile. I hope you just read it and think about what you write.

[Alan Ray]

That Is exactly what I see in my 2 week old hive I have been asking the same questions with no answers. I didnt shake the bees in but put the shipping box in the hive and let them crawl out on there own. marked the queen (so easy to find now) on checking to see if she was released she wasn't and did. two frames were drawn out and swithed the second and nineth frame to the center. on first week they had 6 drawn out (using a top hive feeder). The queen is huge in one hive (twice that of a drone) and small only a little bigger than a worker in the hive that started the queen cells.

[zenbeekeeper]

Today I removed the top feeder and when checking the second brood super I noticed that they were almost finished building the 4th frame. I also noticed that they were storing sugar water in some cells. There was also some spotty brood in three of the four frames they are working on. I removed the top super and man my population has grown! I can no longer look between the frames and see my bottom screen.

So now we will see what they do when we let the bees be bees...

[Oldtimer]

Which part of the thread did you think was not letting bees be bees?

[zenbeekeeper]

Which part of the thread did you think was not letting bees be bees?

No part...I am all about letting the bees be bees.