[mariahthebright]

Hi

My name is Mariah and I am new to beekeeping.

I was doing a hive inspection when I noticed one of my hives had NUMEROUS queen cells. I don't think they are big enough to swarm and I also noticed freshly layed eggs. Is this normal in a new hive? I only installed the package 20 days ago.

 

[tomkat]

Normal, what is normal in beekeeping??
I would destory the cones that you found, this maybe just be the bees are not sure about the queen.
Check your hive again in a week, if there are Queen Cells with eggs and the brood is spotty I would let them rear a new queen.
Only allow two queen cells to ripen.

 

[dkofoed]

The bees are likely going to supercede your existing queen (for one reason or another, evident mostly only to the bees).

 

[djei5]

Supercedure is common enough with package bees, queen may be in the cage for up to a week depending on how long the supplier had them packaged, picked up by your retailer or you, introduced to your hive, the 3-4 days for her to get out. By that time, workers may decide something just isnt right with her. Check for larvae, sometimes you only have empty cups.

 

[tsmullins]

Supercedure is common enough with package bees, queen may be in the cage for up to a week depending on how long the supplier had them packaged, picked up by your retailer or you, introduced to your hive, the 3-4 days for her to get out. By that time, workers may decide something just isnt right with her. Check for larvae, sometimes you only have empty cups.

+1 on this. For whatever reason, it is very common for packages to supercede their queens.

 

[Brad Bee]

If you have a nuc box, pull one frame of bees and the existing queen out of the hive and put them in the nuc with 4 frames of foundation. If you don't, have a nuc go buy one. LOL

Those are nice queen cells. If you have eggs and larvae in the hive, meaning that the queen is still there and laying, then they are superceding as said earlier. If there are no eggs or tiny larvae, the queen is gone and they are making emergency queen cells, not swarm cells.

 

[Tenbears]

Imagine yourself as a nurse bee who's whole purpose in life is to care for brood, you and several thousand of your nurse buddies , along with several thousand foragers have been shaken into a package your queen taken away, and a new one is now present. for three day you rumble 2/3 way across the country, then are shaken into a hive, for another 3 days or so all you could do is clean and prepare comb for the next generation. for a week you have seen on brood, the Pheromones of brood and eggs is gone from the hive and you wonder if you are queenless, the faint aroma of eggs occurs occasionally but not in sufficient amount's for the thousands awaiting to care for the precious future of your line. it is your life's mission! Soon you begin to make sense of all this. Our queen is failing! she is unable to produce ample eggs to allow the colony to grow, you and several other nurse bees spring into action and build queen cells around some of the remaining eggs before they are all gone. and that is what is happening,

If the queen begins producing eggs in sufficient numbers to lead the masses to believe the hive is out of danger, the workers may tear down the supercedure cells, if not then the queen will be superseded.
I would not try to get fancy, I would not worry about harvesting queen cells or doing splits, You are new and I think it is ridicules to even offer such advise to someone who is dealing with their first package. Watch the hive weekly and follow it's course. As long as you see eggs in the center of cells you are fine. The nice thing about supercedure is that the superseding queen is so closely related to the reining queen that one continues to bolster the hive while the other is bred and begins laying. It is even possible for both of then to occupy the hive together indefinitely.

 

[adgjoan]

This is why I often wonder about giving the package of bees a frame of mostly capped brood one week after being hived. You think that might keep the bees from superseding the queen?

 

[Brad Bee]

Tenbears, making a split like I suggested is perhaps more simple than falling off a log. I don't see anything ridiculous about my suggestion. I wish someone would have suggested for me to make a split last year when I found the same thing. If the bees want to supercede, then I think the OP should let them, BUT there is no reason to allow them to take out a perfectly good queen in the process. If the queen is marked then all the OP has to do is remove one frame from their hive and place it in a nuc box. It took me a year to figure out that this ISN'T rocket science.

 

[Ravenseye]

This is somewhat common in a newly hived package of bees. I'd let them do their own thing. Often, I see it well after the other hived packages have taken off and I'm stuck with one, slow starter. I usually give them a frame or two of mixed brood from another hive or two and let nature take its course.

 

[redmcc]

I have the same thing taking place with a new nuc I obtained. It had and has all stages of brood. A live queen and three queen cells after a week. It is too cool here for a new queen to mate so should I eliminate the queen cells?

 

[Ravenseye]

I wouldn't touch those queen cells. Once in a while I'll take a queen cell (or better, a frame with a queen cell) and put it into a queenless hive leaving other queen cells in the donor hive but I rarely mess with what the bees have going on.

 

[redmcc]

I guess my fear is when the queen cells emerge as new queens the battle will ensue. Then I could end up without a mated queen in the hive because it is too cool for newly emerged queen to mate.

 

[Michael Bush]

>I guess my fear is when the queen cells emerge as new queens the battle will ensue. Then I could end up without a mated queen in the hive because it is too cool for newly emerged queen to mate.

Huber writes quite a bit on how bees insure that both seldom die. Queens fight it out all the time things almost always work out.

 

[Tenbears]

Tenbears, making a split like I suggested is perhaps more simple than falling off a log. I don't see anything ridiculous about my suggestion. I wish someone would have suggested for me to make a split last year when I found the same thing. If the bees want to supercede, then I think the OP should let them, BUT there is no reason to allow them to take out a perfectly good queen in the process. If the queen is marked then all the OP has to do is remove one frame from their hive and place it in a nuc box. It took me a year to figure out that this ISN'T rocket science.

The Split described is easy as falling off a log, and many have broken their legs doing so. When we offer advice to a new beekeeper we must take a great deal into account. We often incorporate personal experiences into our advice as that is the basis of our knowledge. However not all factors in the equation have the same value. a single frame split from a package although slow growing in has a chance of making it in Alabama, However, in Indiana it has little chance as mathematically it cannot become strong enough to develop resources to survive the average winter. The beekeeper can with knowledge and effort create conditions that will enable the hive to do so. Understanding of forager/nurse bee behavior is not always engrained into beginners and as such a split often goes without foragers for a significant time, further stifling the production of the queen within the split. While at the sane time completely ceasing production within the main hive. These are not insurmountable problems, and certainly problems that can be dealt with by the bees more easily in latitudes where wither is more temperate.

Why encourage a new beekeeper to do something that in all likelihood will bring them a lot of grief just to save a $30.00 queen? Better to help them understand hive dynamics and allow them to develop a good foundation before creating multiple problems for them to deal with. Those will come soon enough! IMHO