You should have a new colony up and running in a few weeks, Fordguy. Today, we also had 80 degree weather. I inspected my hives quite thoroughly. I found a couple of queen cells and, using the nucs I built during the winter, I put the queen cells along with a good amount of pollen, honey, and a good amount of nurse bees into the nucs. I put them right next to the existing hives, but facing the opposite direction. The really small entrance should limit robbing. I'll keep a close eye on them just in case. Hopefully, I just gained two colonies. No other queen cells were found, but plenty of brood. I requeened last Fall.

All is well with my existing hives (knock on wood).

 

BTW, yes, I located the queen before removing the small cells.

 

If the queen cells had nothing in them, don't wory about it. The bees just get them ready this time of year, just in case they need them.

 

tx bee, let me question you a little - why would bees waste their time and previous March pre flow energy doing something that had no direct role in perpetuating their line? I thought when you saw swarm cells, it was just a matter of time and you couldn't just ignore them, you had to take some drastic action.

And let's say you are right and the bees just get them ready in case, when the queen comes along, she will lay in them! then what?

 

I meant to say "I located the queen before removing the swarm cells." I agree you shouldn't ignore swarm cells. Cut them out or use them in a nuc. But losing two thirds or your colony is not an option. I have found swarm cells make excellent queens.

 

I never destroy them. I usually put each frame with any swarm cells in it's own nuc to get some very good, very free queens. But only if they are capped. Otherwise I'd come back in a couple of days. Actually the number of days would depend. If they are just cells, I'd come back in about a week. If they have eggs in them I'd come back in about five days. If they have big fat larvae in them I'd come back in a couple of days.

Destroying capped queen cells is a great way to end up queenless.

Assuming capped queen cells (or even ones with larvae, what you did was a pretty good plan.

 

But don't some bees always keep some queen cell cups around in the hive and sometimes not use them?

 

yes, they will quite often build cups without using them.

 

YEAH! I want to hear more on this too. I've read here and elsewhere that bees will keep a few cups around for "just in case". I'm asking with Fordguy, who/what determines when they get laid in? (I'm trying to choose my words wisely as last time I asked, the discussion turned to symantics with no answer to the question...)

Waya

 

Ford Guy says>why would bees waste their time and previous March pre flow energy doing something that had no direct role in perpetuating their line?

Well, I have found that every spring, the bees will either construct new queen cups, or fix up the old ones. The reason they do this, is so that if they want to swarm, supersede, etc. they will have those cell ready. As to the queen laying in a queen cell, before the queen lays a egg in any cell, if you watch her, she will stick her head in first. What she is doing, is measuring the cell. That is how she knows to lay an unfertilized egg in a drone cell. She can tell it is a drone cell because she measured it. So, if she lays an egg in a queen cell, she would have measured it first, so I would take it to mean that they are going to swarm soon. Hope this helps.

 

I may be off base, but I thought the bees around the queen controlled where she lays. They sorta lead her around by the nose and say "yep here is where you are going to lay missy".

 

>I may be off base, but I thought the bees around the queen controlled where she lays. They sorta lead her around by the nose and say "yep here is where you are going to lay missy".

After watching them for many hours a day over several years in my observation hive, I would say that's a more accurate descrition than most, but still not entirely accurate. She won't lay in a cell unless the wokers have cleaned and polished it and maybe they put a smell in it. The queen will stick her head in and then measure and then, if it meets her criteria, lay. But she often lays where the workers don't want her to and they just remove the eggs. She often lays WHEN they don't want her to and they just remove the eggs. The workers do a variety of things to control how much and where they have brood. They feed the queen less, so she lays less, they fill the brood nest with nectar so she won't lay in it, and they clean out the eggs they don't want to raise. I've never seen the "herd her" per se but it wouldn't surprise me if they did, I just haven't seen it.