[bjorn]

I started a nuc last week with 2 cells of young brood and the attached nurse bees, 4 frames of honey, 2 frames of foundation and a frame feeder. I was hoping there were eggs fresh enough for them to make a queen. Being a newbie, I am hopeful that they succeeded despite my lack of knowledge. So, do these appear to be queen cells?

 

[KQ6AR]

Those are called queen cups, my hives have those all the time.
The one on the right might have a larva in it, if so it will be a Q cell.

 

[Harley Craig]

It appears one is capped and another in the upper right corner has larva in it, my only concern is the size of them they look small google honeybee queen cells and compare

 

[Saltybee]

Not sure how many days ago you split, some of the worker looks 5 or 6 days old. Some cups may be young cells. Unless you had to clear bees to get that photo you need to move more bees with your split.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Emergency queen cells

 

[wcubed]

Am not quite as positive as MP. Although the structures look like E cells, there is some conflicting data in the photo. For one thing, the cells, collectively, do not have sufficient down slope for queen cells. E cells typically slope downward at about a 45 degree angle. That's sometimes as close as they can get to vertical. Note that the cell immediately above the capped cell appears to actually slope upward? Drones are reared horizontally.

The capped cell, itself, does not look Queen-like. Almost any queen cell tapers in diameter to a capping dimension close to worker size. This cell capping is quite blunt, about the same size as the two at the bottom of the picture, which are drone cells.

Am not saying there are no queen cells in the mix, but the evidence suggests drone to me.

Walt

 

[Michael Bush]

Center left is a capped queen cell. Since it's capped, the others likely have larvae... and you can see a larvae in the upper right cell.

 

[jim lyon]

I'm with cubed on this one, at least I wouldn't trust what I see to get me a queen with just that in a split. The orientation seems a bit horizontal.

 

[CtyAcres]

bjorn- MP and MB are correct. That capped cell on the left should be 1st one out. Hopefully she mates well for you.
Good luck.

 

[AstroBee]

What I see is an unbalanced split. If you're going to force emergency cells, you should have given them more nurse bees. Also 4 frames of honey to 2 frames of brood is asking for problems. I'd have given them 3 frames of brood and 2 of honey/pollen, shaken in a lot of nurse bees and put them in a 5-frame nuc box. Forget the foundation until these gals are on their feet. Perhaps 1 frame of honey/pollen + 1 frame of foundation if you're going to feed.

What I see in the picture appear as very weak queen cells resulting from too few nurse bees. You may get a queen out of this, but they are going to struggle.

 

[ycitybz]

I'd have to agree with mike palmer, they sure look like emergency queen cells...

 

[tanksbees]

Maybe it's an optical illusion, but it looks like a fair number of cells have more than one larva?

 

[challenger]

Maybe it's an optical illusion, but it looks like a fair number of cells have more than one larva?

Must be an illusion. Optical of otherwise. Maybe a prank to see who is on their toes?
Multiple larvae? Really?
Twins are so exciting!

 

[Joseph Clemens]

I agree with MB and MP. And, though these queen cells are on the small size, they could still produce a queen with suitable characteristics. It's not usually the cell size that matters so much, it's the age of the larva when chosen to be raised into a queen, and how well she was fed. I have seen many very nice queens produced by cells that looked like those. I've also seen undesirable, runty queens, produced in very nice looking cells, too.