Supercedure cells? Hive trying to come back?

That depends on your expectations. Having already invested some brood, are you ready to invest a queen, or let them try to sort it out. A new queen will mean even more brood. Do you have it to spare? (current wait for queens is ~2 weeks for mine). Me, I'd let them go, for the fun of it. The next guy maybe wouldn't. Ain't beekeeping a kick?

I am tempted to let them sort it out. That would really be cool if they made a queen. And I'd kinda feel like a beekeeper.

frankthomas said:

I am tempted to let them sort it out. That would really be cool if they made a queen. And I'd kinda feel like a beekeeper.

Click to expand...

Thats "BEE " cause you ARE....! let em do it.......

I'd be tempted to let them work it out. I'd also keep an eye on them.

Any recommendation on how long to give them to work it out before I intervene?

'Depends on the age of you queen cells, but say they were just capped ( From Morse - "Rearing Queen Honey Bees" )- hatch in 8 days, mate in 5-9 days, lay 2-3days, so 2-3 weeks after the cells are capped, you should be seeing eggs.

Takes about a month from egg to laying queen. Sounds like the bees already have it sorted out. You will learn a lot from that hive.

Thanks all. This hive is fun to watch. I will keep some updates going in this thread. Yesterday I had some more orientation flights going on this hive and my inspection revealed pollen and nectar being stored. So if they get a good queen going, bred right here, maybe this hive will really turn around.

Actually yesterday the 3 hives that are all next to each other had orientation flights going so there were a lot of bees in the air for awhile. Cool stuff.

The total picture is often more complicated... you gave them some brood, is that where the queen cells are? If so they are probably emergency cells and probably from fertile eggs and I would let things play out. If they are on brood that was in the hive before and if that brood is all drone brood, then they could be unfertile eggs in the queen cells. If so, they will not develop into queens.

Sounds like they killed the queen and made their own, check in about 3 weeks for laying.

Its almost 2 weeks since I first discovered three capped queen cells in this struggling hive. I found no queen and a handfull of bees so I added two frames of capped brood with nurse bees.

Today all 3 q-cells were empty with the ends chewed of. They were not very big. 3/4" long and the diameter of a pencil. All 3 on the same face of a frame. There were maybe 5,000 bees. Very active but gentle. There was newly capped honey, nectar and a little pollen. But not one single egg, larvae or capped brood. The two frames of brood I placed from another hive had all emerged. The bees were working. Bringing in stores. I did not see a queen but I may have missed her. I did notice as I inspected frames that bees on the bottom were fanning.

Should I just continue to be patient? Give another week or so and hope a queen I didn't see starts laying soon? Other than small numbers and no queen sighting it seemed like a normal hive.

Thanks all.

Still early, i don't expect to see eggs til around week 3, but it can happen in as little as 8 dayst post emergence.