Egg in queen cup - should I be worried?

[Illo]

What do you mean by "no evidence of swarming"?

Ben P

Hi Ben,

When we inspected last week, there were quite a few cups (not fully formed swarm cells or supersedure cells), empty, and in different places around the comb. We have kept a close eye on them. None bar one have any eggs in, apart from the one that I mention, which was surrounded by other egg containing cells, including eggs in a bit of brace comb hanging off the bottom of the frame. I put this down to over enthusiasm! The queen is laying for England.

Meanwhile we have added a super to give more space, and the bees are taking only a passing interest in it, despite our making gestures of encouragement with syrup spray and bruising stores in the BB. They just repair it and carry on as normal. So even though things look pretty busy to me, I guess the bees are telling me that they don't feel the need for additional space at the moment.

I guess this is what I mean by not exhibiting swarmy behaviour....unless you advise differently?

LJ

 

[Busybee123]

I had this happen about 4 weeks ago to me. i found one queen cup with an egg at the bottom of a frame.
what i did was rather than my usual inspection of 3-4 frames of brood i went through the whole box and shook smoked all suspisious frames.
i marked the frame with the cup on it(not shaken)
came back in 3 days(longest from egg seen to larve) and pulled the one frame with the cup on it. the workers had removed the egg and all was well.
so i closed up and continued my inspection routine ie box opened again in 4 days time.

my only warning would be that since you didnt cut out the cell you have to inspect before the cell could be sealed.
Otherwise it wouldnt worry me but would warrant an early inspection of the frame.

best of luck with it
tim

Thanks for the reply Tim.

Good idea marking the frame.

I will have a look in another 2 or 3 days.

 

[richardbees]

Busy...

Tomorrow's Tuesday...so have a good look.

You've since posted that it's in the centre of a frame which is the typical location for a supercedure Q cell.

So, if it's now a grub and there are no other Q cells leave it

richard

 

[tonybloke]

I just wish that I had thought to mark the frame so that I could go straight to it next time.

I always keep a drawing pin stuck into back of hive, handy if I need to mark a frame

 

[Busybee123]

Busy...

Tomorrow's Tuesday...so have a good look.

You've since posted that it's in the centre of a frame which is the typical location for a supercedure Q cell.

So, if it's now a grub and there are no other Q cells leave it

richard

Thanks for the reminder Richard

I will inspect tomorrow (provided the weather is not too bad) and report back.

 

[Busybee123]

I always keep a drawing pin stuck into back of hive, handy if I need to mark a frame

Good idea!

Sadly I'm not that well prepared

BTW I seemed to loose you mid conversation the other night in the pub - hope it wasn't anything I said

 

[Busybee123]

Ok - I had a look at the bees today. I went through all the frames and found what I think was the queen cup that had the egg in with a small amount of royal jelly in the bottom, but no larva. I removed the queen cup and took it apart to have a closer look - definitely no grub, just a small amount of royal jelly. I can only assume that if there was a larva in it that the workers removed it.

I had put a super on at the last inspection, and the bees had started to draw out about 6 or 7 frames already, and I noticed that 2 or 3 of the frames had eggs in. I found the queen on one of the super frames and thought I would take the opportunity to mark her and move her back down into the brood chamber.....BAD IDEA!

I picked her off the comb using a clip queen catcher and then transferred her to a marking cage (the type with a foam covered plunger). I managed to mark her nicely on the thorax and return her to one of the frames in the brood chamber. It was then I noticed that she was missing one of her front legs! I think it must have happened when I used the clip queen catcher - I did not notice at the time. I put a queen excluder on top of the brood chamber, put the super back on and closed up the hive.

So now what?

Will the bees will supercede her because she is damaged?

Will she carry on laying in the meantime?

Should I requeen ASAP?

She was such a prolific queen - I am so annoyed with myself. I feel like such a fool!

Ah well - that's life! Got to laugh

 

[MuswellMetro]

yes, they will supersede her, if you are lucky


I never use queen clips ,i would throw it away, if i want to mark a queen i use a crown of thorns not a plunger and queen clip

you may kill a bid of brood with the crown of thrns but i do less damagae to the queen

 

[Busybee123]

yes, they will supersede her, if you are lucky


I never use queen clips ,i would throw it away, if i want to mark a queen i use a crown of thorns not a plunger and queen clip

you may kill a bid of brood with the crown of thrns but i do less damagae to the queen

Thanks for the reply.

With my luck then they probably won't supercede her! What would you suggest I do? Requeen?

Queen clip is already in the bin....

 

[tonybloke]

Thanks for the reply.

With my luck then they probably won't supercede her! What would you suggest I do? Requeen?

Queen clip is already in the bin....

leave them for another week now, don't re-queen them, if they want to, they'll do it.

 

[tonybloke]

BTW I seemed to loose you mid conversation the other night in the pub - hope it wasn't anything I said

nope, my router crashed!

 

[Busybee123]

nope, my router crashed!

No problem - maybe see you in there again

leave them for another week now, don't re-queen them, if they want to, they'll do it.

Ok - Thanks for the advice. It will be interesting to see what they do. I'm absolutely gutted that I damaged the queen

 

[richardbees]

busybee

Never mind, you did your best!

"...a clip queen catcher and then transferred her to a marking cage (the type with a foam covered plunger)."... imho there's much too much high tech involved here!

Leave them alone and have another look on Saturday...and tell us what you find?

Richard

 

[Busybee123]

"...a clip queen catcher and then transferred her to a marking cage (the type with a foam covered plunger)."... imho there's much too much high tech involved here!

You're probably right Richard - I'm just not confident enough to handle the queen directly, and I'm just doing it the way I was taught because I don't know any better! I could really have done with having an experienced beek with me today....but I suppose you learn by your mistakes.

What did you make of what I found?

I found a few queen cups, all empty except for the one which had the egg in which had been drawn out a bit and contained a small amount of royal jelly, but no grub.

I was really surprised how much work the bees had done in the super of foundation I added just a few days ago, and never expected the queen to be up there laying.

Seems like they were making preparations to swarm and then gave up on it when they were given the super, but if so why only one queen cell?

If it was supercedure then why did they give up on it?

Soooo many questions.......if anyone can make any sense of it all I'd be very interested to hear what you think my bees are up to.

I know that the fact I damaged the queen today has just complicated the whole thing even more - I wish I had not tried to mark her, but I thought it might be useful if I ended up having to do an artificial swarm in a hurry.

I have no idea what to expect on my next inspection!

 

[richardbees]

Busy...

Truth be told you should have limited yourself to just preventing a swarm!

Anyway, it's in the bees own interest to keep the colony going so, in the worst case, there should be recently laid eggs they can create a new Q cell from....

Don't worry about it!

Richard

 

[Busybee123]

Busy...

Truth be told you should have limited yourself to just preventing a swarm!

Anyway, it's in the bees own interest to keep the colony going so, in the worst case, there should be recently laid eggs they can create a new Q cell from....

Don't worry about it!

Richard

Thanks Richard for your kind words and your advice. I really appreciate it!

 

[nematode]

Busybee,

I have a small colony left after an AS then a real swarm, then a cast from it. Not many bees in there but in theory a new queen. I checked them properly for the first time a couple of days ago and found five sides of freshly laid eggs in a solid pattern so things look good. However, I too found a cup in the middle of a frame and ready to be used. And it was not a remnant of the queen cell or any I broke down. My theory is that they have it ready for any signs of a badly mated queen. Maybe they will even charge it with jelly. I think that is pretty unfair of them to put the queen under that much pressure. What must she think?

 

[Busybee123]

I think that is pretty unfair of them to put the queen under that much pressure. What must she think?

Never mind the queen, what about the the pressure they put a newbee beekeeper under keeping him or her guessing as to what they are up to!

 

[busybee53]

Bit off topic, just saying hi from one busybee to another. Wish you well on your next inspection and hope my lot don't start up queen cells this late in the year, but I wouldn't put it past them.

 

[Busybee123]

Bit off topic, just saying hi from one busybee to another. Wish you well on your next inspection and hope my lot don't start up queen cells this late in the year, but I wouldn't put it past them.

Hi BB53,

I will be inspecting when weather permits within the next day or two and I am a little aprehensive about what I will find.