[cnt]

Some background. This is my only hive. It's a top bar hive (similar to Michael Bush's design but 2" wider, and with a window). It came from a package 28 days ago and I gave it 4 chopped down medium frames of comb to start with. It's now got about 7 bars of comb and a good layer of bees on each. On day 21 I did an inspection and saw a very tight grouping of capped brood pretty much any where they would fit, with eggs or larvae in the newer comb. If there was a cell, there was an egg, larvae, capped brood, honey, or bee bread. I haven't seem much comb progress in the last 5 or so days through my inspection window (its been cloudy/rainy and so not much flow in.)

Yesterday I peeked through the inspection window and saw a queen cup mid way up the side of a comb. Today I did a full inspection. They're pretty low on honey, most of the capped brood I saw on day 21 has emerged. And I only see the one queen cup, though it's possible I missed others I'm still new. Below are some photos I took. The first two are of the inside of the cup with two different camera settings

The third is of my queen who happened to be inches away from the cup.

Another note, every bee I see walk by the cup stick's it's head in for a good 10-30 seconds.

View attachment 10762
View attachment 10763
View attachment 10764
(the frame is upside down in the last shot.)

 

[psfred]

Just the one queen cup? Keep an eye on it just in case, but likely they just want one around. Might even let the queen lay in it then remove the egg, too.

I have two on the bottom of two frames in the brood nest. They've been there for three weeks, never change. Bees like to keep them around in case the queen suddenly plays out on them, which happens.

Unless they raise a queen in it, I'd just ignore it.

Peter

 

[cnt]

ok. I guess it was nice of them to put it by the window then. real easy to check on. Or maybe they're trolling me because I can't help but peek in the window every evening.