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Queen cell in nuc
I made a 5-frame nuc that I split off a strong overwintered colony on 5/5/19. I used a locally purchased queen for the nuc. The nuc has been doing well and expanding nicely, so I am planning on moving it to 10-frame boxes (my regular size). The nuc now consists of two 5-frame boxes, the top box was added 6/1 with undrawn frames. I checked them today with just a quick look at the top box and currently they have drawn out four of the five frames and have 2 frames worth of capped brood in that top box along with larva and eggs. One frame of capped brood was a solid pattern covering almost edge to edge and looked beautiful. The other frame have a fair amount of drone brood on the lower portion of the frame. HOWEVER, in the middle of the face of the frame was a large fully finished and enclosed queen cell. I saw a few small queen cups also, but only 1 queen cell (mind you I didn't pull frames in the lower box so there may be more). So I am debating some options before I fully go through it this weekend:
1) I was thinking about still going ahead and putting the nuc into a 10-frame hive as planned and then as long as I saw the queen, I would put her in the 10 frame box and leave the frame with the completed queen cell behind and create another nuc from that frame along with some bees shook in with it plus honey/pollen.
2) Based on the placement of that cell am I likely to have a failing queen or a missing/dead queen? As I understand it, building queen cups in quite normal for a colony, but a completed queen cell is telling you about a supercedure (weak/dead/old queen) or swarming (which would be more likely to be on the bottom/outer edges of the frame I think). Maybe they are trying to tell me to get them more room because the nuc is getting too small for them. Should I just go ahead and move everything into the 10-frame hive and let the bees continue as they were with a possible supercedure?
Maybe I won't see any queen in there and they could have swarmed, but I doubt that because the numbers of bees looks to be only growing each time I check and I would think it wouldn't be common for a 5 frame nuc to swarm this quickly.
Not sure what I am going to find this weekend so I wanted to figure a gameplan for whatever I might encounter.
Thanks for your opinions and help!
I made a 5-frame nuc that I split off a strong overwintered colony on 5/5/19. I used a locally purchased queen for the nuc. The nuc has been doing well and expanding nicely, so I am planning on moving it to 10-frame boxes (my regular size). The nuc now consists of two 5-frame boxes, the top box was added 6/1 with undrawn frames. I checked them today with just a quick look at the top box and currently they have drawn out four of the five frames and have 2 frames worth of capped brood in that top box along with larva and eggs. One frame of capped brood was a solid pattern covering almost edge to edge and looked beautiful. The other frame have a fair amount of drone brood on the lower portion of the frame. HOWEVER, in the middle of the face of the frame was a large fully finished and enclosed queen cell. I saw a few small queen cups also, but only 1 queen cell (mind you I didn't pull frames in the lower box so there may be more). So I am debating some options before I fully go through it this weekend:
1) I was thinking about still going ahead and putting the nuc into a 10-frame hive as planned and then as long as I saw the queen, I would put her in the 10 frame box and leave the frame with the completed queen cell behind and create another nuc from that frame along with some bees shook in with it plus honey/pollen.
2) Based on the placement of that cell am I likely to have a failing queen or a missing/dead queen? As I understand it, building queen cups in quite normal for a colony, but a completed queen cell is telling you about a supercedure (weak/dead/old queen) or swarming (which would be more likely to be on the bottom/outer edges of the frame I think). Maybe they are trying to tell me to get them more room because the nuc is getting too small for them. Should I just go ahead and move everything into the 10-frame hive and let the bees continue as they were with a possible supercedure?
Maybe I won't see any queen in there and they could have swarmed, but I doubt that because the numbers of bees looks to be only growing each time I check and I would think it wouldn't be common for a 5 frame nuc to swarm this quickly.
Not sure what I am going to find this weekend so I wanted to figure a gameplan for whatever I might encounter.
Thanks for your opinions and help!