Conumdrum: Keep Supersedure or swarm Cell.

[buzzerB]

A colony which had been cleared of Queen cells 3 days before, swarmed. This occured nearly three weeks ago and not wanting to upset the remaining bees I have left the hive alone. I had hoped they would have shown signs of producing their new Queen.
Nothing much has occured [i.e. pollen coming in] and today we had a peek and discovered that it is well populated, plenty of honey and pollen stores. No eggs or brood, apart from some drone which had probably been left by the old Queen [?]. There were 2 play cups, 2 unopened Queen [swarm] cells and one supersedure cell in the middle of one of the frames. The swarm cells on the bottom of the frames are sealed whereas the unsealed supesedure cell has a larvae that is only filling a third of the cell [3 day old larva??].

As a newbie I would appreciate anyones advice.The original Queen seemed to produce a lot of drones and had a bad laying pattern.

Perhaps we should remove all the Queen cells and put in some eggs and brood from another good colony?

 

[Oakbear]

If you have new queen cells after 3 weeks you have a queen, so check again for eggs. Given the time frame it sounds like a new queen just starting to lay. Are you sure these are queen cells? Is the unsealed one full of jelly?

You still need to decide how to deal with the sealed cells if the are queen cells. I'll leave it to someone more experienced for how to call that.
It's worth noting that supercedure cells and swarm cells are something of a misnomer. Whilst they may produce fewer cells and more central if superceeding, this is not a hard and fast rule. You have 3 queen cells, regardless of their intent.

 

[buzzerB]

Your experience and advice much appreciated.
As this colony was our first [unsuccessful] attempt at an Artificial Swarm and we messed it up we are thinking of amalgamating it with another colony and calling it a draw!

 

[Skyhook]

Your experience and advice much appreciated.
As this colony was our first [unsuccessful] attempt at an Artificial Swarm and we messed it up we are thinking of amalgamating it with another colony and calling it a draw!

I'm not thre more experienced beek oakbear is waiting for- but I would suggest if you are thginking of combinig with a Q+ colony you need to be really really sure you haven't got a queen in there: and as it sounds as if you may have, do nothing in haste. The experienced beeks will be along soon!

 

[buzzerB]

I know it's all a bit more complicated than that.
It's ALL terribly complicated and not at all standard. Last week at our local club meeting we found a worker bee [dead] sealed up in a queen cell. Somebody must have slammed the door while she wasn't looking!!
As they say bees.....invariably.
Some of the cells on this problem colony did look remarkably polished - a sgn that workers are preparing for a Queen?
Will await some experienced beek as you say . thanks.

 

[terryme]

still waiting for an experienced voice of reason.................................