[The Soap Pixie]

Please educate me on this because I seem to have forgotten what this means. The bees are now producing Drone cells. Correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't the queen needed to make drones?

My queen has NOT moved up into the 3rd hive body, if she has I didn't find her nor did I find brood. I found 4 frames of honey (up from 2 last week), yet there are about 5-10 drone cells on the lower part of one frame.

1. What do the drone cells mean? I'm thinking it is normal for a hive to create these but this is the first time I've seen them and I forget if this is a good or bad thing:scratch:

2. Must I arrange the 1st and 2nd hive body to make room for more brood rearing since the queen hasn't moved into the 3rd? I'm lost. We were told in class she would move right up into the 3rd after I placed a fully drawn frame full of bees into it but she hasn't moved in over two weeks.

3. I was told to just go ahead and move hive body 1 into the place of hive body 2 and vice versa to allow her to create more brood. I'm assuming then that I should move all undrawn frames in those boxes to the center and the drawn to the outside?

 

[libhart]

About the drone cells, even a laying worker can lay drone cells, but if you're using foundation then you've given them a pattern that are all workers. The bees are going to want to have some drones in a healthy, well-eating hive, so they'll put them where they can. Did you see the queen during the same inspection when you saw the drone cells? Did you see eggs/young brood so you're fairly sure she's there? If so, then the drone cells are just part of your normal hive.

As far as the third box, I'm sorry to say I don't have the answer, just the same question. My queen lays all over the first two boxes but the girls drew the top box very fast and packed what they drew with nectar. So what to do? Leave it alone or try to get her to lay in that third box by moving stuff around. I'll leave that answer to the pros here.