[1954Lincoln]

When the queen lays an egg in a cell, how is the cell prepared for the acquisition of the tiny egg?

Will the worker bees slightly fill the cell with some food source before the queen lays?

The reason I'm asking is that I went back into the hive and found a couple more frames of larvae and eggs. These frames up top originally had brood in them and after hatch out I thought the bees were back filling because of the clear liquid in the cells. I pulled those frames several days later and found I had a frame and a half of eggs/larva in them. I also at the same time held back feed.

So I'm confused if I'm seeing back filling or cell/egg preparation in the brood frames.

Mike

 

[AR Beekeeper]

The house bees clean the cell and probably add a pheromone to identify the cell as being cleaned. The queen lays the egg, about 73 hours later it hatches and the nurse bees immediately add the first brood food.

 

[Michael Bush]

>When the queen lays an egg in a cell, how is the cell prepared for the acquisition of the tiny egg?

AR Beekeeper covered it pretty well. They clean it and they seem to mark it somehow. When the queen comes to a cell that isn't clean, she moves on. When she finds a clean marked cell, she lays in it.

>Will the worker bees slightly fill the cell with some food source before the queen lays?

Not at all. Not until it hatches 3 1/2 days after she laid it. Then they put some food in it. The larva at this point is so tiny as to be just an imperfection on the surface of the royal jelly. That's probably what you saw. But very quickly they get large enough to identify as larvae.

 

[ifixoldhouses]

The title made me think of this awesome video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-tqiaPoS2U

 

[rwlaw]

You might’ve seen some nectar that had not been consumed or moved into storage also.

 

[1954Lincoln]

You might’ve seen some nectar that had not been consumed or moved into storage also.

That is an interesting statement that im looking into. I wondered if the bees brought the feed into the hive and placed it onto the stores frames first or placed it onto the brood frames for dissemination.