Does the Queen assist in any way in making Drone and Queen cells

[marklaverda]

Reading some posts here on Queen rearing, it just occurred to me that in all my years of bee keeping I do not recall ever seeing a QC or Drone Cells drawn above the Queen excluder ( I use a National Hive and WBC hive).
Any thoughts why? I mean why should the workers know that a space the thickness away of a QE is not to have comb QCs built?
Hence I wonder if these cells are only made in areas that the Queen has physical access, and if she stimulates the drawing of these cells in areas she can get to somehow.

 

[VEG]

queens cant normally get through the queen excluder to lay eggs.

 

[marklaverda]

Yes Veg but eggs are laid after the QCs/ Dcs are made.How do the bees know that literally the other side of the QE is a no go zone?

 

[Hivemaker.]

Seen both plenty of times, above the excluder,even more if drone foundation is used.

 

[Cazza]

Perhaps you have a strain of bees which are different to mine who definately will pop the occasional QC above the QE?

Cazza

 

[oliver90owner]

Generally bees are not that stupid. There will be exceptions, of course, and workers are known to move eggs on occasions.

Bees don't normally build queen cells that far away from the brood nest - they need to be kept warm.

Some are thinking the bees at present are wasting stores because they are active. Not so. They will either be converting those precious stores into brood or pollen stores, not just eating stores to go for a useless flying 'outing' to look at the countryside! If it is not economic, the bees will not do it; they have been conserving energy and stores over millions of years of existance. The same with isolated brooding cells, so if the brood nest is hard up against the Q/E the likelihood of cells being prepared above is greater.

Perhaps you may have noted that queen cells are nearly always within or beneath the brood nest - rarely at the upper extremes even. Bees have a lot of common sense, even if they don't know it!

RAB

 

[Cazza]

Generally bees are not that stupid. There will be exceptions, of course, and workers are known to move eggs on occasions.

RAB

Clearly my bees are dim!

Cazza

 

[MandF]

I have also seen the occasional play cup above the QE

 

[Suzi Q]

Me too.

 

[oliver90owner]

Clearly my bees are dim!

Likely not. Likely a bit crowded in the broodnest, that is all. I don't get this problem, possibly because I always try to give them plenty of brood space and often there is no Q/E in place, anyway! Maybe my bees are brighter, but somehow I don't think so. Generalisations always have exceptions.

It might be useful to know how much of a honey arch there is on the brood frames, when they do it. Sometimes the observation of a queencell in 'the wrong place' is surprising enough, causing one to overlook investigating why it happened.

RAB

 

[drstitson]

of course bees will happily build QCs de-novo above the QE if using queenright colony for queen rearing and either horsley or cloake board.

 

[Cazza]

Clearly my bees are dim!

Likely not. Likely a bit crowded in the broodnest, that is all. I don't get this problem, possibly because I always try to give them plenty of brood space and often there is no Q/E in place, anyway! Maybe my bees are brighter, but somehow I don't think so. Generalisations always have exceptions.

It might be useful to know how much of a honey arch there is on the brood frames, when they do it. Sometimes the observation of a queencell in 'the wrong place' is surprising enough, causing one to overlook investigating why it happened.

RAB

I will look out for the honey arch next time I see this.
Space is unlikely to be an issue as these are on double brood with plenty of room and enough super room too.
Can't say as I see this as a "problem" as nothing comes of it.
C

 

[MuswellMetro]

Clearly my bees are dim!

Cazza

think i will have to read Ted hooper to them tonight as mine are dim as well