Not as experienced as I'd like to be but have seen swarm cells and supercedure cells in the same colony complete with a marked mated queen from last year. (several times this spring in different hives).

I think that the location of cells and naming them is sort of a generalization. They're queen cells. Bees make them and I'm fairly certain that bees buzz.

 

I think that the location of cells and naming them is sort of a generalization. They're queen cells. Bees make them and I'm fairly certain that bees buzz.

I wonder about that too. I've seen 20 cells in one hive, some in the middle of a frame and most on the bottom. I'd like to see the research that shows where the location of the cell determines what their purpose is. Why would a hive try to supersede and swarm at the same time?

 

if your making in the yard splits - I would move the parent hive over about 5 feet - then place the nucs in a star formation close to it - this will keep the old field force bees from all drifting back to the parent hive - also placing a branch in front of all the new splits makes the bees re orient to the new location - again helping with drift.
My 2 cents
And Brad - there is no difference in supersedure or swarm cells - Now I'm fixing to start a poop storm here but here's the way it is - Queen cells - the bees make these where they have soft wax to work with - Look at all the queen cell photos posted here on BS - and tell me how many are on old hard black comb verses nice white comb.

 

Hi Sakhoney
I have never been clear on the difference between Swarm and Supersedure cells if indeed there is any. But I do agree with the newer wax theory. Yes I similarly place hives when splitting in a case like this.

Thank you!

 

Yeah most of the ones on here are on new white comb. I don't have any white comb in my brood boxes now and the hive I was speaking about in my post, I still remember how the cells looked. There were 3 cells on one side of a brood frame about half way down the face. Beautiful cells. In hindsight that comb was brown but still soft enough for them to chew down a little. There was also about 15-20 more cells in that box. I made a bunch of splits from that one. I left all 3 of those cells on the side of that frame in that box. One made a great queen. She's gone now but she was the mother of my now best queen.

 

On those 3 cells - I bet they built new cell cups on top of that old dark comb didn't they?

 

There is a difference between emergency and supersedure/swarm cells, but it is not what you think. An emergency queen is always floated out of the cell on a bed of royal jelly. The bees may tear down varying amounts of cell wall in the process, but they started with a larvae in a worker cell. Supersedure cells MAY be constructed from an existing larvae, or they may be from an egg purposefully laid in a queen cell by the old queen. Once in a blue moon, you will find where an egg that has been moved by workers and placed into a queen cell. This is almost always because the beekeeper used an excluder and a queen cell was produced above it.

 

Once in a blue moon, you will find where an egg that has been moved by workers and placed into a queen cell. This is almost always because the beekeeper used an excluder and a queen cell was produced above it.

wait....what?..... do you have evidence of this/ experienced it? Are you sure a queen didn't slip through an excluder somehow? also, I have moved what I thought was fully capped brood above an excluder before and had them draw cells because there was an egg or two I missed. I have heard people suspect that workers will move an egg, but up until your post, I've never heard of anyone actually witnessing it?

 

Fusion - I did not address emergency cells - I only addressed swarm/supersedure cells. You are right on with the emergency cell annalists and the bees floating out a larva. And I am not trying to start a debate - some people believe there's a difference and there beliefs are fine with me. I'm only trying to educate here. Nothing more

 

these folks are spot on, location means nothing. The number of cells can give an indication of intent, but you still have to look at the big picture. If there are a bunch and the nest is backfilled with nectar, they are swarming, If there are only a few and there is no aparent reason why they are there, they are superceding. If you have a bunch of them, and no honey stores to speak of like in this case, I'd say emergency due to something happening to your queen, if you suspect robbing, I suspect that is what happened to your queen.


Edit: Oh and to answer your question about what to do with the extras, If I have the equipment available, and the time, I never let a queen cell go to waste, I'd split em up into seperate colonies, if something happens weather wise, you can always re-combine before winter if need be.

 

Well you know what they say - can't beat experience - and another thing - I won't post if I'm not 100% sure

 

My understanding - and I hope someone will chime in if I'm wrong - is that for swarm cells, queens lay eggs in cells that are planned to be queen cells. With supercedure cells, the bees are taking an ordinary worker destined egg in a worker cell, and by giving it more and different Royal Jelly, are converting it to a queen. The egg stays in the worker cell where it was laid - the bees have to extend the cell to make room for queen development.

 

Hi Andrew

Thanks for the input. This is what I have always believed. Yesterday I did split the colony into 4. I could have done more as I had more Queen cells but I ran out of equipment. Today I did check on the new colonies (10 frame medium) and one new Nuc. Some are better than others due to drift I would say. I plan on trying to balance out the low populations with a frame or two from the stronger splits in the next day or so. I am concerned about low amounts of honey as they all had mostly nectar. I did place a frame of honey from another colony with the Nuc. I am now concerned there may not be enough bees to keep the Queen cells warm in the Nuc. As always Andrew you guide me well so chime in if you have advice. Or anyone else for that matter

Andrew are you seeing Brown Tail Moth infestations this year in your neck of Maine???

PS Swarm went into my Bait hive... different bees than the ones that made the Supercedure cells as those are yellow these are dark. Am excited though as I just dropped them into a box today. (while standing in a tractor bucket)

Bee Keeping is so interesting.. always an adventure

Best
Marcy

 

the egg in the cell is emergency cells - as fusion describes above - swarm/supersedure cells - the queen will lay in a cup as instructed by the bees - Just because she's the queen - don't mean she's the boss
And gobarciab (what a handle) - Thanks for the attaboy - I try to help and educate the newbees - we need them - Beekeeping is hard work and there a lot of the newer generation that does not want anything to do with that word (work)

 

Andrew so far I think I am the only person dealing with these darn Brown Tail Moths.... While those tent Caterpillars are terrible I would take them in trade for these other ones. The skin rash they produce is painful.

Enjoy your field day Andrew...

Thanks
Marcy

 

Gomarciab, afterswarms means after the first swarm. What happens is the hive sends out a swarm with the old queen, this is the first swarm and is sometimes called the primary swarm. Then a few days later if the hive still has enough bees or they are a strain prone to do it, they will send out more swarms with the virgins that hatch from the queen cells, these are normally smaller swarms and are called afterswarms.

A hive with 5 queen cells? Pretty much I would need to see the hive. There are other things that will guide you to the bees likely intentions such as time of year, ie late spring provided the hive is healthy it would be almost certainly preparations to swarm. But at 5 cells it is pretty unlikely to be a supersedure attempt.

Also many cells could be a queenless hive, for some reason when a queen is killed the hive will sometimes build many queen cells and the beekeeper could confuse this with a swarm attempt, except that a close look at the cells will show they have been built from worker cells rather than pre prepared queen cell cups. My own theory as to why queenless hives build many cells when they really only need one new queen, is that when the queen is killed and queen substance dissapears, the bees immediately go into emergency queen rearing mode and start cell raising all over the hive, but that's just a theory. In any case, it works for queen breeders, as a queenless hive can be induced to raise many queen cells.

 

Also many cells could be a queenless hive, for some reason when a queen is killed the hive will sometimes build many queen cells and the beekeeper could confuse this with a swarm attempt, except that a close look at the cells will show they have been built from worker cells rather than pre prepared queen cell cups. My own theory as to why queenless hives build many cells when they really only need one new queen, is that when the queen is killed and queen substance dissapears, the bees immediately go into emergency queen rearing mode and start cell raising all over the hive, but that's just a theory. In any case, it works for queen breeders, as a queenless hive can be induced to raise many queen cells.

I think this is what happened to me. Details here: http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho....php?326762-N00bee-here-Queenless-colony-after-package-install-on-5-7-Need-help

That colony has been split into nucs. Waiting for the new queens to emerge.

 

Well, there's a few things to deduce when you see a bunch of queencells. The first is to recognize if they're emergency cells or not. Last year I had a 5x5, I had inspected it about 3 weeks prior, it was building well. I pulled the first frame and there were about 13 queencells present along the bottom of the brood. I pulled another frame, about 10 cells present. The hive wasn't overcrowded so I thought it odd they wanted to swarm, but I then started looking at the cells and could immediately tell they were all emergency cells based on their construction. Sure enough, I went through the rest of the hive and there was no queen anymore.

I don't know why people preach this location idealogy of cell placement. If you carefully observe where queen cups are built there is a fairly obvious pattern. Bees build them on new wax or in holes in comb or damaged areas or the sides of comb because quite simply, that is where they can fit them in. Also, if you really get into it, there is no such thing as a swarm cell or a supercedure cell, you simply have queencells and then must determine what the bees are intending based on count of cells and hive strength etc...

 

nice thread

 

For those who questioned the "bees move eggs" comment, yes, I have seen it a few times and it is more common than anyone would guess. I may still have a picture I took 20 years ago of a queen cell above an excluder. It was the only cell on the frame and the queen was safely down below. She was failing during the summer dearth so it was a supersedure cell.

 

Did that cell emerge a queen? I found a single drone cell in an excluded honey super frame (there was an upper entrance). I figure most likely from a laying worker. Does anyone have a picture of a worker carrying an egg? Thelytoky?

 

The researchers usually credit a worker egg being fertile. To my knowledge there has never been photos of a worker placing an egg in a queen cup to make a queen. Workers do pick up and carry eggs, but they usually eat them, not transfer them to cells.

 

AR - how in the heck is a worker - an unmated female going to lay a fertile egg?

 

typo?

 

I used the term fertile because I can't remember the proper term for the ability of an unmated worker to lay an egg capable of becoming a female. It is a rare occurrence happening to only about 1 egg out of 10,000.

 

where is the evidence backing that up - a worker cannot lay a worker - My BS meter is going off and it doesn't stand for bee source

 

Found it, Thelytoky. Search for a study done by Mackensen in 1943.

 

Our experience last weekend was that an old grandma queen from which we have been hoping to raise more queens was being moved from her cozy nuc to 8-frame, and we spotted capped queen cells all over the hive, in addition to abundant brood. She's never shown signs of swarming before, but this was a classic case. Previously, we've stolen brood frames from her to produce emergency queens.

We are also coming off cool wet weather. Two other hives swarmed in May. Forage has been pathetic. The swarms will probably starve. The two swarmed hives still had abundant leftover stores from last fall's feeding, and the grandma queen nuc was being fed regularly.

But fortunately, she was still in the hive. Our strategy: continue transferring the frames into the 8-frame hardware, in the same location, but we moved the old queen back to the nuc, with some of her brood and with frames of stores from her granddaughter. Moving the old queen is essentially an artificial swarm ... the bees are not quite sure how the move happened but it should satisfy their urge to swarm. We moved two frames with queen cells into a "queen castle" (a 10-frame deep partitioned into 4 mini-nuc apartments). We gave the mini-nucs some stores from the same booming granddaughter hive. From this we should raise 3 queens, and still have grandma. Everybody got fed.

The problem is, we don't need extra queens at the moment. But the guy who gave us this wonderful old queen had some losses, and we now have a better genetic legacy for this particular line than he does, so if all works out we will return the favor.

He introduced us to queen castles. These are handy for queen rearing. They're just big enough to get a queen hatched and mated. The mini-nucs can be expanded by pulling partitions, so you can get two full nucs in one. Nucs are fine, too, but how many small hobby apiaries have enough on hand to accommodate a sudden crop of queen cells?

 

> more supersedure cells than I have ever seen in my 11 years or so of beekeeping.

A lot of queen cells are probably not supersedure cells. They are most likely swarm cells. How many is "more supersedure cells than I have ever seen..."?

As far as queens moving eggs, as far as I know at this time no one has ever observed queens moving eggs. In every case where people make the assumption that they "must have" it can be explained by something that HAS been observed: thelytoky. I see no reason to make assumptions about something which people have spent centuries trying to observe but have not when thelytoky, however rare, is an adequate and observed explanation. Thelytoky has been observed for more than 100 years in European honey bees.

 

link the post AR

 

Sakhoney, there is an abundant body of evidence that worker bees can lay diploid eggs. It was first documented nearly 200 years ago when hopelessly queenless colonies were able to produce a queen after a few punic workers were introduced. Apis Mellifera Capensis has a gene that causes most workers to be capable of laying diploid eggs and in some cases, a colony will maintain itself in a queenless state with workers produced from eggs laid by worker bees. Unfortunately, this trait is deleterious for colony growth and severely limits honey production.