1 Supersedure/Emergency Cell, What to do

[BackYardPhenomena]

I have multiple hives, yet got this nuc in October. There was a swarm in my yard which I was unable to capture last week. When I went through the hive at first, the 8 frame deep only had 5 frames pulled and most were full of nectar. I didn't look too closely. Today I went through and saw 1 superseder/emergency cell in the middle of a frame of capped brood. I couldn't see any other eggs or brood in the box.

I am going to let it sit, but was wondering why the cell wasn't even capped yet if the nuc had purposely back-filled the brood and already swarmed. Again I am not sure if this is the colony that swarmed, but I would think so with all the capped honey and nectar filled comb.

Any Thoughts???

[KQ6AR]

My guess would be that you're queen was injured when you went through the hive last week. So there must have been a laying queen in the hive at that time.

[HarryVanderpool]

Is it a supercedure cell or an emergency cell?
They are very easy to distinguish.
If the cell started as a worker cell and was elongated out into a queen cell, THAT is an emergency cell.
When you find an emergency cell, you do not have a queen in the hive.
Swarm cells and supercedure cells both start as a cup and the queen lays an egg in that cup.
In the emergency situation, there is no queen to lay an egg. The bees have limited time to change cast determination of larva from worker to queen.
3 very different cells that are produced by different impulses of the colony.
The nice thing about that is that we are given a pretty firm indication of what is going on in the hive when we spot one of these.
If the cell you spotted is an E- cell, you are queenless.
If it is a supercedure cell, you may or may not have a queen by now. It certainly took one to lay the egg, but they were wanting to replace her for some reason.
First determine which type of cell is present. Then, if it's a supercedure cell take a look for the queen and evaluate the egg and brood situation. Then you can make a decision on what to do.

[Oldtimer]

Agree with the good advice given so far.

Also, if it's an 8 frame hive and so far they have only drawn 5 of the frames, it's highly unlikely it would have swarmed. If the hive was normal, it's supersedure or you recently killed the queen. In either case leave the cell alone.

The hive might not have been normal though, I'm just wondering because you said it has 5 drawn frames and they are mostly full of nectar. It could possibly have been queenless for quite a while, do you know for sure it had a queen recently?

Other thing, do the hives in Miami have drones at the moment? If there's no drones, whatever is in the queen cell will not be able to mate. So if the hive is queenless and raising an emergency cell, but there's no drones, you should kill the queen cell and unite the nuc with another hive.

[Bees In Miami]

BackYard and Oldtimer: Two of my hives 'forced' me to do a split early this week. They were looking very swarmy and were absolutely packed in the hives. My head and the 'season' was telling me one thing, but my bees were telling me another. I did have a few hatched drones, and plenty of drone brood. Wish I had seen it coming a bit sooner to try to get a queen in there right away, but I am sure they are busy making a new queen now. Back Yard, great advice has been given above! I know things can be a lot different for us down here. Look for drone brood, then make your decision, but I would suspect, as I do, that you should have plenty of drones or drone brood to take care of a new queen. (Where is Miami are you?) Best to you, and your bees!

[rniles]

Is it a supercedure cell or an emergency cell?
They are very easy to distinguish.
If the cell started as a worker cell and was elongated out into a queen cell, THAT is an emergency cell.

What would a supercedure cell look like?