[Monie]

Sounds like a superceedure. Apparently, your bees want your current queen out.

 

[ccar2000]

I am a greenhorn here but, it doesn't make sense to me that there would be queen cells without eggs. Wouldn't there need to be an egg laid before creating a queen cell around it? If that is true then there must be eggs! Maybe you could look again when the lighting is better. I am in about the same time frame as you with my two hives. I was able to see the eggs but it is tough in the plastic foundation.

 

[tjtll]

perhaps there are eggs. If so, why would they be making supercedure cells if the queen is laying. It has only been 10 days since this package was installed. Could it be that she is just not starting fast enough for them? How would these queen cells work if there were no eggs in the hive?

 

[jonathan]

it doesn't make sense to me that there would be queen cells without eggs.

The bees make a series of queen cups which look like the outer casing of an acorn. The queen lays in these and they are then developed into queen cells.
Queens cups are present almost all the time and are not an indication of swarming intentions unless they contain a larva.

 

[devdog108]

I have cups throughout my hives, they constantly build them, then tear them down....always look for eggs or larvae.....

 

[AmericasBeekeeper]

Some lines of bees keep a couple queen cells all the time, just in case. I pick a different strain of bees personally.

 

[trapperbob]

Its pretty common these days to have a new queen with a package superceded most bee companys dont have time to make sure that they are doing there job of egg laying these days so there seems to be a rash of inferior queens out there. let them replace her or order another queen.

 

[tjtll]

Maybe that's it. They are making 'just in case cells'. I have never heard of that but then again, I'm new. Is that a common trait with Italians? I did notice that the bottom of the one I really looked at the longest was open and had a bee sticking her head in it. Whatever that means. I guess I will stop worrying about it and check back in a week to see if I have better luck spotting eggs.

 

[USCBeeMan]

If you purchased a package, the queen should be mated. Could be a great queen. It seems that the majority of packages want to supercede the queens.

Think about it.... 1 queen, thousands of bees. No telling how many hives were shook to get the correct amount of bees in the package. They accepted the queen but they are still all from different hives.

Queen cells in the center or top are supercedure cells as stated above. Keep checking you hive. If they queen is laying a good pattern and a lot of eggs sh's a good queen. If you are starting on foundation, she can't lay much if there aren't cells. But if she is putting eggs in cells when they are just getting formed she is a good queen.

So, if you have a good queen, you may want to move her to a very small nuc shortly after the queen cells are capped. If you have another hive, get a frame of honey/pollen and also shake in a couple of frames of house bees.

Now you have a nice new nuc with a good queen and still have the packaged hive with queen cells that will be emerging shortly.

JMHO

 

[Countryboy]

For a minimum of 21 days with a package, no baby bees are hatching. The bees often blame the queen, and start trying to supercede her. If you give the packagebees a frame of sealed brood within the first 2 weeks, it often stops the bees from trying to supercede the queen.