[beeginer]

Ok i was a little late getting into one of my hives. I did yesterday and there were queen cells on the bottom of a couple of frames, I thought i would remove them to maybe help prevent a swarm. Well when i scraped one off out popped a new queen and fell into the hive. So what now will they maybe kill her or the old queen go ahead and swarm or what ? I did slip in a few new frames to give them a little room.

 

[no1cowboy]

they have most likly swarmed allready, they swarm soon after capping the queen cell, so if a new queen poped out its likly to late. you need to dig around in the hive and see whats what.

 

[beeginer]

Well if they have swarmed it was a really small swarm. There are still alot of bees there both deep boxes are full.Im keeping a very close eye on them as i suspect that they will swarm.

 

[Carl F]

Do you have a good pattern of eggs/larvae/capped brood? Either the queen is being superceeded, or she's already gone with a swarm. They won't make new queens if they have a healthy queen and enough space.

If they were preparing to swarm, destroying the queen cells probably won't stop them. It will just leave you with a queenless hive and no young eggs to be made into a queen when the queen eventually leaves with the swarm.

 

[Michael Bush]

Destroying swarm cells is a good way to end up queenless. I never do. I might split the hive several ways and make use of all those good queen cells, but I don't destroy them. As mentioned, odds are they already swarmed.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm#queencells