[Pooh Bear]

Just finished my inspection of my hive: two deeps, two medium supers and found a big queen cell smack back in the middle of a frame with a larvae and royal jelly inside. The cell was on the way to being capped in say another day or two. Say it's about 7 days old so hatching in say 9 more days. Sorry don't have a photo to post.

I left the cell and inspected the rest of the hive and found no queen and no eggs that I could see. The hive is packed full of bees and seems at full capacity. I didn't check the honey supers for the queen but she never ventured that far up into the hive before. Hive behavior was more aggressive than previous inspections but not terribly so. I have carniolans.

The lack of eggs, no visible queen and what seems to be an emergency or Supersedure cell has me thinking that I've probably killed the queen or the bees are not happy with Her. Not sure what to do now. My inclination is to let things develop as see what happens. Perhaps the queen is there so could this be a swarm cell? I'm not sure.

The hive is thriving so having another queen of that lineage would be welcome. Any thoughts as to what I should do? I'm thinking that I should re inspect in say another 5 days and really make sure the old queen is gone, check for eggs etc

 

[Pooh Bear]

I should add that I found the cell in the bottom brood. Not sure if that makes a didference

 

[Deucebland]

I would let it go, and let them do their thing. They know something you don't. �� I'm convinced keeping bees is just a way to see life lessons played out. Trust nature, and let go. ��

 

[GaryG74]

One cell is a supercedure cell. If it were swarm cells, there would probably be between ten and twenty, at least in my experience. I would do nothing, let it play out. You'll probably see young larva in 28-30 days, maybe less. Good luck.

 

[Pooh Bear]

Thanks folks. Yes I'm going to let this one play out and either way am going to learn a lot from the experience. It's kind of nerve wrecking, mostly because it's hard to determine the hives intent.

 

[e-spice]

...It's kind of nerve wrecking, mostly because it's hard to determine the hives intent.

Welcome to the club Duecebland said it best: Trust nature and let go. Good luck to you and your bees.

 

[JRG13]

Is this the same hive you removed cells from earlier?

 

[Pooh Bear]

Yeah it is. I thought that perhaps I had inadvertently taken the queen out or lost her when i dropped a whole frame onto the ground but judging by the age of the cell, the bees seem to have made their decision soon after last weeks inspection when I had marked her. I have a sneaky suspicion that the hive wants to swarm.

 

[JRG13]

I doubt it, like I said earlier, once they want to supercede, it happens. You've stretched it out, but the bees always win in the end by making that queen disappear. If you had inadvertently squished her, you would have emergency cells on every frame that had viable eggs or larva at the time to make a queen.

 

[crocodilu911]

Just finished my inspection of my hive: two deeps, two medium supers and found a big queen cell smack back in the middle of a frame with a larvae and royal jelly inside. The cell was on the way to being capped in say another day or two. Say it's about 7 days old so hatching in say 9 more days. Sorry don't have a photo to post.

I left the cell and inspected the rest of the hive and found no queen and no eggs that I could see. The hive is packed full of bees and seems at full capacity. I didn't check the honey supers for the queen but she never ventured that far up into the hive before. Hive behavior was more aggressive than previous inspections but not terribly so. I have carniolans.

The lack of eggs, no visible queen and what seems to be an emergency or Supersedure cell has me thinking that I've probably killed the queen or the bees are not happy with Her. Not sure what to do now. My inclination is to let things develop as see what happens. Perhaps the queen is there so could this be a swarm cell? I'm not sure.

The hive is thriving so having another queen of that lineage would be welcome. Any thoughts as to what I should do? I'm thinking that I should re inspect in say another 5 days and really make sure the old queen is gone, check for eggs etc

1, they swarmed with the old queen, and now they are making a new one.
2, the old queen was a bust so they made a replacement.
another thing, 3, you killed the queen, and now they were trying to save themselves from death.

by the behavior, it is almost sure they do not have a queen. do not go looking for at least 2-3 weeks from now. if you insist, go get a frame of eggs from another hive, and introduce it now. and then let them be for 3 weeks. let her hatch, mate and do all that. if you don't have a flow, I would feed sugar water as I introduce that frame of eggs.
if you still have bees in there, you should be fine for now.

I hope this helps.

 

[Pooh Bear]

I knew I was going to learn something this week. I had figured two scenarios were likely: a) I would not find the old queen and the Queen cell would be capped ready for hatching this week (recall last week it was being elongated and had larvae + royal jelly) or b) I would find the old queen AND see the queen cell capped.

Well guess what? The bees gave me a third option. Old queen still around (her previous mark had worn off but was still there; probably why I missed her last inspection) and the queen cell? completely gone. Gone as in gone gone. Wiped from existence. I have to say I was floored by this - has anyone seen a queen cell pulled like this?

 

[crocodilu911]

Welcome to the bee world. How is the brood pattern?post picture.

 

[Pooh Bear]

Can't say that I saw a lot of eggs. It's always very difficult with the screen on but still lots of larvae developing and capped brood. New numbers are terrific right now.

The only other thing I did from the last inspection was add an extra medium super which they are drawing out right now. The first super is nearly full with capped honey

 

[Pooh Bear]

Sorry no photos to share, with gloves on (2 pairs) it's too difficult to handle a camera.