[littlesplines]

I'm in southern Ontario. On 31st May we were going to inspect our 2 hives and expected to need to split one. Opened them up and found queen cells in both, looks like they are newly capped (and some uncapped ones) so guessing about 8-9 days old. So we split both hives and the 2 hives with the original queens are doing very well. On 22nd June we checked the hives with queen cells and found no brood, no eggs, which was a little worrying since we thought 3 weeks maybe enough for the queens to hatch out, harden, and mate? Possibly on the early side. We added a frame of eggs to one hive, checked again on 3rd July, and found a few queen cells, including ones on frames adjacent to the frame of eggs we added (guess they do move the eggs around). We arranged to pick up a queen on 6th July since we found no eggs/larvae/queen in either split. Our plan was to requeen one hive and combine the second with its original. However when we look at the split with queen cells on the 6th, we found eggs and very small larvae, and the pattern indicates it is likely a queen and not a laying worker.

Has anyone encountered this before?

We removed all the queen cells in the split, going to leave it alone for another week. We put our new queen in the other split (which we were going to combine and has no eggs/larvae that we can see), and hopefully they'll accept her. I do find creating queen cells when there's already a new queen rather odd. Weather has been mixed in the past few weeks, a few rainy days but definitely also sunny clear days in between, nothing like 2 weeks straight of rain that might impede mating.

 

[Saltybee]

Re: Added a frame of eggs to a split hive, found queen cells and also eggs & larvae

"Has anyone encountered this before?"

Sure. 35 Days after split is not rare, atypical yes. Funny, we hit the same exact dates. That was the last to lay out of 3 made on the 31st.

 

[littlesplines]

Re: Added a frame of eggs to a split hive, found queen cells and also eggs & larvae

I was wondering more about them making new queens cells despite there being a queen in the hive. I guess maybe she took so long to mate/lay, her presence wasn't felt?

 

[Saltybee]

Re: Added a frame of eggs to a split hive, found queen cells and also eggs & larvae

I have no better explanation than you have.
I would check for superecedure cells in a week or so but I doubt there will be. Let me know what happens if you would.

 

[littlesplines]

Re: Added a frame of eggs to a split hive, found queen cells and also eggs & larvae

I would check for superecedure cells in a week or so but I doubt there will be. Let me know what happens if you would.

We checked again on the weekend, a couple more queen cells, no signs of eggs this time although we could definitely have missed them. That hive definitely have some issues.

 

[Saltybee]

Re: Added a frame of eggs to a split hive, found queen cells and also eggs & larvae

I would stop fighting city hall and let the cells you have replace the queen.