[Brenda]

Is it normal for a queen in the process of hatching, to look white and more larvae like?
I split a hive and added a frame with a capped queen cell, from another hive. Checked it today and the above is what I saw. Just wondered if that's what they are supposed to look like.

 

[TXbeekeeper]

Never have seen what you describe, Brenda. Here is a a link to what a newly hatched queen looks like. Did you actually see her crawling out or was the cap of the cell removed?

http://diary-of-a-beekeeper.blogspot.com/2010/06/watching-queen-hatch.html

 

[Brenda]

I thought it was weird. Definitely a queen cell. It was capped when I put it in last week and today it was uncapped and this "thing" was in it. My first thought when I opened the hive was that the queen had hatched because they didn't have the queenless roar they had last week. So now I'm wondering if the queen hatched yesterday and something crawled in her queen cell? I'll check it again in a couple days and see if anything's in that cell, and then check the frames for a queen.
Added-
Hey is that your blog? I looked at the "long" queen cell in that blog and that's what this queen cell looked like. Very long, and it's a couple days overdue for hatching. Seems I may have had the same weird thing happen.

 

[David LaFerney]

What type of bees are those TXbeekeeper?

 

[Michael Bush]

Yes, it's normal. Sometimes they are almost transparent for the first day or two. They "harden" over the next several days and sometimes go from almost transparent to black or brown.

 

[Brenda]

Thanks Michael. That gives me hope that what I saw was the queen. This hive has been queenless for about 4 weeks and I'm concerned about it developing laying workers if it doesn't get a queen soon.

 

[Michael Palmer]

How was the "thing" positioned in the cell, and where was the hole through which you saw this thing?

Was the hole at the tip, or was it on the side? I'm thinking that if the hole was on the side, what you saw was the dead queen pupa. Probably killed by the bees or another virgin.

 

[Brenda]

The hole was at the tip and a little to the side. The "thing" was alive and moving, head down. I'm thinking the way it was positioned it just about has to be a queen/larvae. It just looked strange.
I'll take my camera next time I go check it. Hopefully it will just be an empty cell.

 

[alexthegreengrocer]

Those bees shown in the link are technically mongrels, but several generations ago they were Carnolians.

 

[Brenda]

Update!
I just checked that split and whatever was in there is gone, cell is almost torn down, but they must have a queen from an earlier frame of eggs and larvae because I saw uncapped brood.
Here's a few photos of what's left of that queen cell, and the bees are feral bees that I was lucky enough to lure into a bait hive last year.

 

[Joseph Clemens]

Brenda,
What I see in your picture is an older queen larva, in a queen cell that may have been recently sealed, or just prior to being sealed. In the second image, you can clearly see the midvein on the larva's convex backside.

 

[Brenda]

This was a capped queen cell originally about 2 inches long. They have torn down at least half of the cell.
Yeah, I kind of thought that looked like a larvae in that cell bottom too, but then I thought it could also be the back/bottom of the cell structure showing through. I wasn't able to see with the naked eye, only with the close up of the photo.
I need to pack a magnifying glass to take with me.