Capped Queen Cell in centre of Frame.. no other Q Cells?

1401 Views 7 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Michael Bush, Jun 30, 2014

dlawr42103

Discussion Starter · Jun 29, 2014

I have a hived swarm of bees, that I collected about 1 month ago.

The queen was quite slow to get started, but last week she really started laying well.

Today she has lots of new brood and is laying very well...

But we found one capped queen cell on a frame.. there were was 2 other play cups but otherwise no signs of trying to raise queens.

We have left this as wondering if this could be a supersedure queen? But the other one now seems to be really good.

Any advice or suggestions?

I had the same scenario no another collected swarm a couple of months ago and destroyed the capped cell. That queen is now doing quite badly and I wish I had allowed the new one to hatch.

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WBVC

· #2 · Jun 29, 2014

I don't have much experience but seems you could:

Let the bees work it out
Pinch out the QC
Pinch out the Queen
Move the Queen to a nuc and see if the QC produces a mated Queen to your liking

Personally I would do the first or the last depending on inclination and resources.

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tanksbees

· #3 · Jun 29, 2014

Take the frame with the QC and move it to your badly laying hive, problem solved.

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dlawr42103

Discussion Starter · #4 · Jun 29, 2014

tanksbees said:
Take the frame with the QC and move it to your badly laying hive, problem solved.

Sounds like a sensible idea, don't why I didn't think of that! If I move the frame with QC to the poor colony, should I snuff out the existing queen at the same time, or perhaps put a cage on the QC to check it is a viable queen in there?

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Dave Burrup

· #5 · Jun 29, 2014

The primary swarm leaves with the old queen. Soon after they have established a new hive they will superceed her. Leave the queen cell alone the bees know best. It is not unusual for them to keep the old queen laying until the new one gets started. Sometimes they will keep both queens for weeks, and then kill the old queen.
Dave

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Slow Drone

· #6 · Jun 29, 2014

Couldn't give you any better advice than Dave Burrup gave you. Pay close attention to what Dave said and remember it for future knowledge!

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tanksbees

· #7 · Jun 29, 2014

You could do what Dave says, but why let them kill a good laying queen?

Obviously the bees know best, except they don't take your goals into account - like needing an extra queen for a dying hive.

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Michael Bush

· #8 · Jun 30, 2014

>You could do what Dave says, but why let them kill a good laying queen?

Because maybe the bees know what they are doing?

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