[LAlldredge]

Q- Are queen cells (elongated) in the middle of frame always supercedure? I removed a queen today and created a split and now I'm starting to doubt myself and whether I made the right decision. Parked old queen and a few frames of brood in a resource hive. Gave them a sugar slurry over wax paper and protein pattie. They seem happy as a clam and eagerly eating the slurry. Original location has two long queen cells to build from.

The frame I found the supercedure cells on are partial foundation frames that allow natural comb building on either end. They usually use it for drone brood. The cells were tucked up against those. Queen cups were started on the bottom as well.

Should I have let the colony kill her? I had enough doubt that I decided to move her instead. Her laying pattern was very good. Flow is on.

 

[JWPalmer]

If I am lucky enough to find a supercedure cell, I will check the laying pattern of the current queen. I everything looks OK, I will use the supercedure cell for a split and monitor the hive. If they make another supercedure cell, I let it play out. Moving the queen is another option but it does not give you as much feedback. The hive will raise the new queen and the split will use the old queen, at least until or if she fails.

 

[MattDavey]

The number of Queen cells is also an indication of their purpose. Less than 5 in a large hive is usually Supersedure.

I typically see it towards the end of the Main Flow.

Can be caused by an imbalance of the amount of open verses capped brood.

 

[Oldtimer]

Q- Are queen cells (elongated) in the middle of frame always supercedure?

Short answer is no.

If there were quite a few cells they were built for the purpose of swarming (regardless of where on the comb they were), and if there was just one or two they were built for the purpose of supersedure (again regardless of where on the comb they were).

At this time of year, swarming is much more common than non swarming supersedure, so at this time, if there were quite a few cells, they are for swarming. Supersedure without swarming is much more prevalent in fall, so in fall if you find just one or two queen cells, it is supersedure. Just exactly where the cells are placed on the comb matters not.

We even see beekeepers claiming their bees made a mistake, ie, they built "supersedure cells", but then got confused and swarmed instead. When we hear these stories, it was not the bees made a mistake, it was the beekeeper had his facts wrong. The beekeeper thought that if bees build queen cells on the face of the comb, it is for supersedure. When in fact the bees built them for swarming and just cos they were on the face of the comb made no difference to what the bees intended to do.

 

[LAlldredge]

Short answer is no.

If there were quite a few cells they were built for the purpose of swarming (regardless of where on the comb they were), and if there was just one or two they were built for the purpose of supersedure (again regardless of where on the comb they were).

At this time of year, swarming is much more common

Thank you everyone for your responses. OldTimer I especially like how you wrote out your thoughts. It makes me feel a little better about moving her to a split. It felt and looked like swarm prep.

Beekeeping has a lot of worry in it. Geez I hope that part gets easier.

 

[Saltybee]

Beekeeping has a lot of worry in it. Geez I hope that part gets easier.

Only when you learn to ignor the fact you should be worried!