Brood and queen cells in super. Did I do the right thing?

[Beeconcerned]

When checking the (poor) stores in a super last week I found worker brood on 2 frames and a well developed but not yet capped queen cell at the bottom of one of these frames. This cell was damaged when removing frames because it was also fixed to the excluder by brace comb. I visited the local beebitz supplier, and bought a new plastic excluder. I took off old the excluder, shook/brushed all bees from the super into the brood box, plonked on the new excluder and replaced the super. The hive is very full of bees, and they haven't forgiven me yet.

When I looked closely at the very old metal excluder (Which I should have done before!) I could see several places where the queen could have squeezed up through.

Today I can see that there is at least one new queen cell in the super but its too cold and wet to look further. I don't mind if this hive swarms, I'm on holiday this week, the hive is close and I will see them if they go.

Did I do the right thing? The question is, if the only queen cell(s) are in the super, will a hatched virgin queen be able to fit down through the new green plastic excluder, or should I have sorted this out another way?

 

[MJBee]

I would take a frame of stores out of the brood box and put it somewhere safe (from robbing and wax moth - freezer?) then put the super frame with the queen cell(s) in the center of the brood box.

The plus side is the queen will emerge into the brood box where you want her and the only down side is you may get a bit of wild comb built under the super frame.

Once she has mated and is laying you can thaw out the brood frame and return everything to where it should be. After 3 weeks (24days if there is drone) any brood in the super frame will have emerged.

 

[Beeconcerned]

Thank you for the reply.

It makes good sense, but I was hoping to leave them alone after last weeks work now that the old queen (last year's) is back where she should be. There were lots of bees and very lively and I got a few stings. What is likely to happen if I leave things alone? I suppose that comes back to the same question about whether a new queen can fit through an excluder. If not the crown board hole is open. Would she leave that way?

 

[susbees]

Are there any stores in the brood box? We've had an email about starving bees in Shrops/Wales/Cheshire in hives which have had honey removed recently and hived swarms.

Are there drones in the hive? Are they under eviction notice?

 

[Beeconcerned]

There are stores in the brood box I saw an almost complete outer frame of capped honey which I 'bruised' there are also stores in the super, but not the stores I would expect. I had taken a super full of rape honey before this time last year, none this year.

There are a few drones about, but they may be from other hives nearby but there were also a few capped drone cells in the super.