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Swarm and queen cells.

1279 Views 4 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  Buzzlightyear
I was away on holidays and I think I had one hive swarm.
They were a new nuc in late May.
They have brood but no eggs.
They have one real nice swam cell and a few small ones.
I also found 2 supersedure cells on the face of comb.
Should I get the swarm cells out maybe put them in a nuc or just let them take care of it.
I started 2 nucs at the same time and this one is looking lighter on bees already. I don't want them to swarm any more.
They are in a double deep.
Thanks.
Buzz
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You understand a queencell is just a queencell, no reason to distinguish in this situation, they swarmed, made queencells, now you can thin them out or make splits if you have the resources.
Ok thanks. I was wondering if there was a difference.

So once a swarm occurs future a queens will tend to stay and fight it out ?
Why do supersedure cells not swarm?
Superceding a queen and swarming are two distinct biological events for bees. Superceding occurs when a hive senses something wrong with a queen and wants to replace her. Typically 1-6 queencells will be started to complete this task, often you find 1-2 cells. How the bees decide on how many cells to make is anyone's guess, but anytime there's more than one queencell I would say swarming is a possibility. I don't know the reason people try to place so much emphasis on location for queencells and their meaning, bees will make cells where they can fit them in. Whenever multiple cells are present a swarm is a possibility, but I don't think it's known why some will swarm multiple times or the first virgin out kills all the other cells which typically happens with a supercedure.
Ok thanks.
Now what to do.
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