Peak queen cell number

[meidel]

Does anyone monitor this and how reliable are the stats?

I thought with all the A/S's we'd done April/May I'd keep a record of the PQCN for each hive. The one which gave the most conservative number - 15 back in mid May, this same queen and her brood produced just over 25 today!

Does this mean that the worker brood in mid May were likely to have been from less prolific drones and the worker brood in today's hive were from the notorious carnie stock - so much for trying to breed queens from less swarmy strains when we've no idea who they mate with!

 

[Teemore]

6 charged QCs is the highest I have seen in any of my stocks this year. The majority have yet to produce QCs or require "swarm control" i.e. demaree, artificial swarm or removing the laying Q in a nuc to another apiary.
My personal view is that the stock you refer to is swarmy for the simple reason that they are preparing to swarm for the second time this year, irrespective of the number of QCs produced. Others in your area may have a different view - different forage, different micro-climate etc.
Strong colonies with good stores and good forage opportunities will have a greater inclination to swarm than weak colonies with poor forage opportunities.

 

[meidel]

I'm envious of your 6 charged QCs being the highest. Our highest is upwards of 40 - some of us gave up counting after reaching this no. Needless to say a couple of us practise drone culling with a vengeance. But then these are our most productive colonies - we just have to learn to manage them.