Cell finishers

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Plenty of honey

Field Bee
Joined
Aug 24, 2015
Messages
965
Reaction score
15
Location
Brittany, France
Hive Type
Dadant
Number of Hives
260 + (Nucs and Honey production)
I have a nagging question i cant answer. Does the arrival of queen cells being finished, in a cell finisher, on a strong colony affect the queens behaviour if she cant get in to contact with the cells that are being finished.
Is she able to detect their presence (if she cant physically find them as she cant access them)
If she can detect them, obviously its a bit like superscedure cells in a flow in the top of a super but in the case of swarming its usually initiated by the existing queen , laying in to specifically made cells and she's in swarming condition when she oversees the production of swarm cells. ( or something like that)
I finish my queen cells on top of my brood production nucs, that way they stay highly populated, with lots of bees. Perhaps not so many nurse bees in proportion to a cell builder but i spread the cells of a few hives, max 14 or less per hive for finishing

https://youtu.be/03W3Qs1hmbg

Does anybody know if the presence of cells in the colony, above the excluder, lead to early on set swarming of said finisher. I have not had a problem yet but wonder if anybody has. i just get the feeling i might be initiation other problems i am not aware of!
 
I wouldn't think so Richard. Your finisher method has been used almost forever. If cells above an excluder initiated swarming, it would certainly have been reported. Anyway, you already have enough to worry about, right? :)
 
I wouldn't think so Richard. Your finisher method has been used almost forever. If cells above an excluder initiated swarming, it would certainly have been reported. Anyway, you already have enough to worry about, right? :)

To say the least!!! lol thanks for your reply!
 
My cell finisher is one of 4 out of 36 that hasn't tried swarming
 

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