[ITstings]

Looked through tbh today and found a queen cell 1/3 way down the comb. The hive is doing ok not booming. so not sure if they are going to swarm or just superseding her. what are the differences in a top bar hive ? like placement of the queen cells ?

 

[beez2010]

Swarm cells are placed at the bottom of the comb in any hive. Sounds like they are superceding her for whatever reason.

Chris Harvey--Teakwood Organics

www.thewarrestore.com

 

[RayMarler]

Only 1? Maybe it's a queen cell cup and not a cell? Is there larva in it? Normal for healthy hives to build out empty queen cell cups here and there.

 

[ITstings]

Thank you for the help. The queen cell is capped. Found another tbh today, same way.They were packaged bees.

 

[RayMarler]

With swarming, it's never just one or two cells, it's many cells, in a crowded hive. With only one or two or three cells, it's usually supercedure. This happens sometimes with packages. I can only guess it may be because of an inbalance of the ages of bees in the package, maybe too many nurse bees waiting on the queen to start laying enough for the nurse bees to be happily busy. Or maybe something else. The bees in the package are no relation to the queen and they are of a shaken bunch of bees into a large cage and then dumped into a small cage with a caged queen inside. Sometimes they tend to try superceding the queen, sometimes they stop the process themselves before it completes by tearing down the cells they started. Sometimes they don't and they replace the queen.

 

[ITstings]

Wow, Great information , That explains alot with whats going on for me ,with all the package bees we've gotten.Thank you for the help .