nettle
New Bee
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2013
- Messages
- 92
- Reaction score
- 89
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 3
I split my good hive on 29 April using the artificial swarm method when you can't find the queen - so new hive in old position with 1 frame of eggs & young brood, and 1 of stores (+ syrup in feeder). I checked back in 7 days and knocked down all but 1 QC (they were all sealed, so I chose the best looking one). I marked the QC location with a pin. Two weeks ago I had a very quick check to see if they had stores, but didn't go through the hive properly as I didn't want to disturb a virgin queen or be in the way if she returned from a mating flight. I've been topping up the feeder in small amounts since then, as they hadn't drawn an awful lot of comb and didn't have much stored.
Today I did the first proper inspection. There's a great big fat QC that looks close to emerging (brown tip), but it's right where the old cell was that I left them with. The rest of this comb is packed with pollen both sides, and some nectar round the top. On the adjoining frame there were 7 supercedure-style cups on the face of the comb, one of which contained an egg. This frame contained eggs both sides, but no sealed brood. They looked to be queen eggs rather than laying workers - centred in the bottom of the cells, one per cell. The rest was stores. Their temperament wasn't the best (it was 20ish degrees, sunny & calm).
I don't get it? Did the QC not emerge, in which case who laid the eggs? I checked the comb for other QCs very thoroughly. I estimated it should have emerged around 13 May. If it was a dud wouldn't they have torn it down by now? It can't surely be a new one in such a short space of time?
I've left everything as I found it. I didn't want to go tearing down any supercedure cells if that's what they are. Up until this week the weather's been terrible - wet, windy and cold. So maybe she was poorly mated. Any advice appreciated.
Today I did the first proper inspection. There's a great big fat QC that looks close to emerging (brown tip), but it's right where the old cell was that I left them with. The rest of this comb is packed with pollen both sides, and some nectar round the top. On the adjoining frame there were 7 supercedure-style cups on the face of the comb, one of which contained an egg. This frame contained eggs both sides, but no sealed brood. They looked to be queen eggs rather than laying workers - centred in the bottom of the cells, one per cell. The rest was stores. Their temperament wasn't the best (it was 20ish degrees, sunny & calm).
I don't get it? Did the QC not emerge, in which case who laid the eggs? I checked the comb for other QCs very thoroughly. I estimated it should have emerged around 13 May. If it was a dud wouldn't they have torn it down by now? It can't surely be a new one in such a short space of time?
I've left everything as I found it. I didn't want to go tearing down any supercedure cells if that's what they are. Up until this week the weather's been terrible - wet, windy and cold. So maybe she was poorly mated. Any advice appreciated.
