Yesterday I carried out a weekly inspection of a strong colony and as expected found a marked 2020 queen.However in addition I found 15 capped queen cells over 3 frames indicative of a colony about to swarm. On closer examination I found that none of the cells contained pupa, only royal jelly. Can anyone explain please and suggest the next step I should take. Thankyou
Missing queen larvae
- Thread starter Merryhill
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Any eggs and larvae anywhere else?
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Bees don't put royal jelly in Qcs for nothing, especially in that many. There must have been some really young larvae which you may not have noticed. What have you done, an AS, removed all the cells or left it for them to swarm which will happen as soon as the cells are capped?
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He says the cells are already capped
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Next step: Clip the queen if you haven't already done so.
(occasionally bees do something weird)
(occasionally bees do something weird)
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And mark her at the same time.
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too early for me
. The OP has must have destroyed all the cells to have a closer examination which will only buy a couple of days before they start again. I would personally check in 3-4 days and if new cells are being build do an As.
Boston Bees
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On the day of capping the larvae might still be just small enough to be covered in royal jelly - are you sure there were no larvae in there?
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I am sympathetic to this. It has happened to me in unsealed cells which could not possibly have had eggs in (2 weeks after a split, for example, where I am pulling virgins off another frame). My guess it is like those situations where you get drone "Queen cells": it's not far from one of those to an empty one. I am GUESSING (in default of a response to Dani's first question) the colony is in trouble with little or no worker brood.
Thanks for all your thoughts.I may well have missed tiny larvae, I'm no entomologist. I did look hard though. There is plenty of capped worker and drone brood and the queen is laying well. There are bees on 9 of the frames in the brood box (14 x 12 )I have decided to leave them for 3 to 4 days and then make an AS if there are new Q cells. Will report back
Boston Bees
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Well by the time the cells are capped the larvae are quite large?
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With all that brood around it sounds like it might be one of those genetic oddities like bald brood. Hopefully it similarly has no real bad effects but it is a curious one. Either that or as someone sort of said, split time. Keep us posted.
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yes you can usually spot them easily but against the white of the jelly could be trickier depending on light...and sight!
I revisited the colony yesterday . I found the marked queen and she was laying well.In addition I found 2 large capped supercedure cells in the centre of two brood frames. I have now made a split.Thank you all.Perhaps I should have gone to Specsavers
