Did I demaree my doublebrood correctly?

Finman · Apr 23, 2016

beeno said:
Now, let's stick to the vernacular guys. If a QC is not developed from a queen cup, but in a worker cell then it is an emergency queen cell - X principle. You may get some handsome emergency QCs if it is a strong colony, good flow, and newish combs, but it is still an Emergency Cell.
May I refer you to the literature published by the Welsh Assembly Government 'There are queen cells in my hive - what should I do?

Answer is simple. If you have much hives, you should continue with good mother queen's daughters. And even select drone hives, if you have afford to it (over 50 hives).

If you continue with queens, which hives have reared themselves, it is not advanced beekeeping. But what happens in reality, it is different, what really happens.

I know, that if I have under 20 hives, it is very difficult to find a proper mother queen from such small group. Most of those are hybrids of different races and are out of breeding.

With couple of hives you have no selection. So your bees will be same mongrels as in nearby church shimney .
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jenkinsbrynmair · Apr 23, 2016

beeno said:
May I refer you to the literature published by the Welsh Assembly Government 'There are queen cells in my hive - what should I do?

Got bugger all to do with demarree - I'm sure wally Shaw would agree bug difference to a queen cell built on a day old egg with plenty of royal jelly and time to take away the wax below the cell to form the queen cell and an EQC are vast especially as, if you are purposefully doing a demarree to raise QC's you would also cut away an area of comb under the chosen cells to allow them to draw the cell down rather than straight out.
As for 'the vernacular' you are the only one insisting on calling them emergency cells.

beeno · Apr 25, 2016

Hi guys,
I understand why you both are dodging the issue, as you don’t want to be seen to advocate emergency queen cells as a means of making increase as that in some quarters is deemed as a no no. Personally, I don’t have any problems with that if it is done in a strong colony, on a flow and on newish combs, then there is not a problem with the quality of the queens and there will not be an abundance of emergency queen cells either.
I do, however, have a problem with the following statement: ‘There should not be any 'emergency' queen cells - the queen is still there but queen pheromones in the top box will be reduced - so only 'supercedure' cells will be built.’ That is a factually incorrect statement as we know how primary cells are built (swarm cells/supersedure cells) i.e. in a queen cup and secondary cell (emergency cells) in worker brood cells. In the physical absence of the queen thus only emergency cells can be built in the top box, until there are no larvae young enough to build from, and they usually are.
There are easier ways of keeping an open brood nest IMHO.
I am sure I am not the only one having a problem with the terminology on this one, but people don’t tend to disagree with you two, because of the venomous backlash that follows.

jenkinsbrynmair · Apr 25, 2016

Not dodging the issue at all - that just goes on in your little world. You believe whatever you want to believe.
But one thing I will say, the statement 'in the Physical absence of a queen' is absolute rubbish (but then we wouldn't expect anything else from certain quarters) because the queen is still in the hive!!