First queen cell - panic!

[Davidwd]

Just inspected the hive, quite warm here today.

Bees covering 8 frames lots of sealed brood, a few drone cells, larvae and eggs.

Found 1 queen cell near the top of a frame with a tiny egg in the bottom but had to destroy it to see if it was an egg.

Should I carry out an A/S? or leave alone?

Many thanks for all the help you guys have been giving me.

 

[victor meldrew]

Just inspected the hive, quite warm here today.

Bees covering 8 frames lots of sealed brood, a few drone cells, larvae and eggs.

Found 1 queen cell near the top of a frame with a tiny egg in the bottom but had to destroy it to see if it was an egg.

Should I carry out an A/S? or leave alone?

Many thanks for all the help you guys have been giving me.

As you only have one colony , it maybe a good idea to a/s as 2 colonies are better than one .
A single colony leaves no margin for errror !
VM

 

[Davidwd]

Thanks V/M

When should I do this today? as I have just performed a full inspection.

I can never seem to find the queen. Would I be safer just to add a double brood? Although I think i would feel safer doing an A/S and try again to find the queen?

David

 

[Silly Bee]

You don't always need to find the Queen.

 

[Davidwd]

How would I know that i have left her in the new hive on the original site?

David

 

[Poly Hive]

If you care to slow down and do some thinking please?

Firstly one egg in a "playcup" is NOT an indicator of swarming.

Yes adding a brood box might be a good plan.

If you split the bees you will end up with one half with a queen and one with out a queen, and in the Q- part you will see in five days a group of queen cells.

It's that simple.

May I suggest that reading a good book is possibly helpful here?

PH

 

[drex]

How would I know that i have left her in the new hive on the original site?

David

Totally agree with PH, slow down.

However in answer to your question. If you cannot find the queen:-

Take the frame with your chosen QC ( unsealed with nice larva on big pool of jelly), and brush all the bees off this into a new brood box, and replace it in original BB. Take the other frames out, one by one, and shake or brush all bees into the new box.Destroy any other QC's or use for nucs etc

All your bees ( including the queen) will be in this new box, or flying.
Place new box on original site. and fill with drawn comb or foundation, and one frame of sealed brood ( Supposed to hold the queen), on top of this place a QE, then your original BB with all the old frames. Leave for a few hours and the nurse bees will go up into the old box to look after the brood, leaving HM downstairs.

You can then split the boxes as per a standard Pagden AS. Do not forget to assess need for stores.

Did this on two hives a week or so ago, and it was messy. In future I will look more patiently for HM

 

[Davidwd]

Thanks Drex,

Just got into a bit of a panic as it was the first queen cell I have ever seen with an egg in.

This is just the answer I needed (some reassurance).

I have destroyed the QC now but when they build some more I will follow your advice.

As it was just one cell with an egg in could it be a supercedure? if so is it still best to do an A/S to be safe and then reunite later on?

Thank you

David

 

[Rich0909]

If you are fairly sure there were no other QC's wait a few days, then have another good look through and you can decide on a course of action depending on what you see then. From memory I think I was taught that a cup with an egg means little, they often don't proceed - a part drawn cell with a larva is when action of some sort needs to be taken.
Whether 2-3 cells or 20 I would AS at this time of year or risk losing a swarm, as you say you can always recombine later.

Rich

 

[REDWOOD]

PH said read a good book, agree and start with this one it's free

http://www.wbka.com/pdf/a012queencells.pdf

 

[Silly Bee]

Excellent link Redwood

 

[LittleGreyRabbit]

PH said read a good book, agree and start with this one it's free

Yes, I found that exceptionally helpful.

 

[LittleGreyRabbit]

If you split the bees you will end up with one half with a queen and one with out a queen, and in the Q- part you will see in five days a group of queen cells.

Is it anyone's guess at this point what sort of queen cells they will be? They could all be swarm cells, could they?

 

[Davidwd]

Good link redwood.

Little grey rabbit - judging by the pictures in redwoods link it actually looked like a supercedure cell. I should have left it to see what they would have done with it, that way i would have been able to take the correct course of action, if they had built a supercedure cell because the queen has died or is ill i could end up queenless. But there were fresh eggs so all may be well. I will be checking carefully over the next few weeks.

David

 

[Cazza]

Did this on two hives a week or so ago, and it was messy. In future I will look more patiently for HM

Not my favourite activity in the whole world either but sometimes needs must.
I have also carried this out twice in the last week. One went well. The other was not very enjoyable with a double BB to go through.
Cazza