Pagden-ish?

[Boston Bees]

Keep an eye on them. I had a colony with one supersedure cell but I nuc'd the queen because I bottled it. I check them today a week later and they made seven more queen cells. So that supersedure cell was a swarm cell.

Ahhh, but was it? Or did they only make the extra cells because they suddenly realised you'd taken the queen, and wanted a backup plan in case their one supersedure cell was a dud?

I'm not saying you were wrong to nuc the queen. I'd have done the same.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Yes...maybe, but I still have the queen and the colony is absolutely huge. I looked in there yesterday. My chosen queen cell has disappeared and there were emergency cells in place so I actually have no idea what they are doing. The queen continues to lay up a storm in the nuc.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I do have another supersedure on the go. She is an old queen and her laying has slowed right down. She’s still nice and fat. Classic.

 

[Sutty]

Well my plans didn't go quite as I wanted!!
I was just getting ready to inspect when the hive that had had more QCs swarmed. They are currently in a new hive in the (empty) neighbour's garden, I'll move them this evening to final position. Looking through it I found a lovely sealed QC, I guess I missed a charged cup with 3 day old larva
The other hive I looked through, found open QCs, reduced to one. Despite looking through 3 times I couldn't find her majesty. I then tried the "shake/brush and smoke the through a QE (I've only resorted to this once a VERY long time ago). Still couldn't spot her! Repeated, but with the now beeless frames in the bottom box. Still no joy!
(In retrospect probably hiding in bee-space under the edge of the box above the QE). Giving up and shaking remaining bees in without QE I then spotted her slip down between the frames!!! It was the expected mayhem by now so unsurprisingly couldn't find her even now.
Knowing they are queenright I removed the one QC I'd left, and will give it another try in a few days just hope I haven't missed any more!!

 

[Sutty]

Looked at another 2 hives today, as expected both preparing to swarm. I'd seen quite a bit of scout activity in the last few days.
Nuced both queens, and cut back to 1QC.
all goes well!