Busybee123
House Bee
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2011
- Messages
- 221
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Northern Ireland
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 3
When inspecting one of my colonies today I found an egg in a queen cup. I did not destroy the egg, but I did poke my hive tool into the side of the queen cup to gain a better view of the contents.
The colony in question was a nuc I bought about 6 weeks ago and since day one the queen (this year's queen) has been laying like crazy. When I inspected a week ago the colony still had 2 or 3 frames of foundation to draw out in the brood chamber (national containing 11 frames + dummy board) but when I looked today they had drawn out pretty much all the foundation and had produced a few queen cups, one of which contained an egg. The weather has been good over the last week and they have brought quite a lot of nectar and pollen into the brood chamber (some of which is now capped).
I gave them a super of foundation (without queen excluder for now) to try and ease the congestion and give them some more space (and Clive de Bruyn recommends this as a good way of diverting a colony from swarming).
I am just wondering what I should expect to find on my next inspection in 5-7 days.
On the subject of queen cups, Ted Hooper says...
"I would not treat them as queen cells until they contain a larva because often eggs in these cells are not allowed to develop further by the workers"
So should I be prepared to do an artificial swarm on my next inspection, or just wait and see?
I really don't want to do an AS this late in the season, and I don't actually have a spare hive at the moment - just a couple of nuc boxes.
The colony in question was a nuc I bought about 6 weeks ago and since day one the queen (this year's queen) has been laying like crazy. When I inspected a week ago the colony still had 2 or 3 frames of foundation to draw out in the brood chamber (national containing 11 frames + dummy board) but when I looked today they had drawn out pretty much all the foundation and had produced a few queen cups, one of which contained an egg. The weather has been good over the last week and they have brought quite a lot of nectar and pollen into the brood chamber (some of which is now capped).
I gave them a super of foundation (without queen excluder for now) to try and ease the congestion and give them some more space (and Clive de Bruyn recommends this as a good way of diverting a colony from swarming).
I am just wondering what I should expect to find on my next inspection in 5-7 days.
On the subject of queen cups, Ted Hooper says...
"I would not treat them as queen cells until they contain a larva because often eggs in these cells are not allowed to develop further by the workers"
So should I be prepared to do an artificial swarm on my next inspection, or just wait and see?
I really don't want to do an AS this late in the season, and I don't actually have a spare hive at the moment - just a couple of nuc boxes.
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