6 week hive check on a first season hive. Found 6 queen cells on the bottom of frames in the brood nest today. Several had "stuff" inside of them and a couple were open. I shaved off the closed ones out of fear of them swarming. I don't know why they would. They have an entire 4th super that they haven't done any work on yet. I also found 4 supersedure cells on the tops of frames. I left them alone, in fear that the bees know something I don't about their queen. I did not find the queen, but did spot eggs and larva in various stages of development. I still have a lot of capped brood and they are filling in their honey stores. The hive seems to be doing well, just not sure how to treat the queen cells. I am running all 8 frame mediums. The first 2 have been filled with brood and honey on the outside. The 3rd, they are filling entirely with honey. The 4th was added last week and they haven't touched it yet. I am really worried about them swarming and weakening their hive so early in the game. Your opinion, advice and experience are very much appreciated!!! Thanks in advance
The Stuff in the queen cell looks to be royal jelly, feeding the queen larva. Other then that I think things look good.
If you had another hive and wanted more bees I would have taken any capped queen cells and put them with brood and nurse bees and a frame of honey into an empty box. Or I use my nucs for this.
I did this a few weeks back and have more hives now.
You don't have both types of cells in a hive at the same time. If you only have a few cells up in the brood area, the odds are that it is a supersedure or emergency situation. If you find cells on the bottom bars, you will normally have cells everywhere and they will all be swarm cells. In a strong hive if you have 5 or less cells up in the brood area only, the odds are its supersedure. If you have 5-30 cells all over, the odds are that they are planning on a swarm or two.
pull the queen along with two frames of brood, 1 frame of pollen, 1 frame of nectar, and 1 frame of open comb into a nuc. Let the main hive requeen by leaving them 2-3 of those nice long cells. The queen is going to get replaced sadly, in the nuc she may have chance but they may supercede her still which you will just have to let it go. She'll disapear at some point even if she's still laying well.
Hi everyone was just reading the post as I to have this happening to my hive and it too is this years hive started from 5 frame nuc and they are replacing the queen. I don't get why as her brood pattern's where just picture perfect and hive was doing great. I just wondered if anyone with more exp could share I thought they only did this if queen died or was bad laying queen.
They sense something firefly. My best queen got replaced this year, I ended up putting her in a nuc, she lasted about two weeks, was laying great, and then vanished.
Thanks JRG 13 I am confident they know what there doing as nature is always smarter than us humans.
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