QC in super

[Blue Spinnaker]

I had a look in my hive today and spotted a QC with larva and royal jelly in the middle of a super frame. I'm confused as to how it could have got there.

It's a 14x12 with brood on 8 frames, 5 of which had eggs on this morning. I didn't see the queen, but she was there a week ago. There are no other QCs anywhere - a few empty cups. There are no other eggs in the super and the QX has been on for ages.

Any ideas? And do I just leave it there?

Thank you

 

[tonybloke]

the bees have obviously moved an egg, if later in the year, I'd leave it as a supercedure cell, but at this time of yr, I'd make up a nuc with it.

 

[Swarm]

 

[Blue Spinnaker]

Sorry if I'm being thick - but why would they do that?

 

[VEG]

just to confuse you lol

 

[Blue Spinnaker]

Well it worked!!

 

[Midland Beek]

Bees do not move eggs and I am astonsished that anyone one this fine forum would think that. It will be a worker laid (unfertilized) egg and nothing will come of that queen cell - the contents die.

 

[northernsoul]

why would a worker lay an egg if there was a functioning q in the brood box?

 

[dickndoris]

Mmmmm? I too have had the same. A QC with an egg and lots of Qcups. I changed to 14x12's this year. Put the new 14x12 on top of the old brood box, waited for it to be drawn and the Q laying, swapped them over ie 14x12 now on bottom, put on the QE. This trapped a lot of drone which I hope most have now been let out but it has been so cold + I have been away for a couple of weeks. Have you done the same? I'm not worried ref a swarm...yet;-) I can only think it is to do with once been a brood (and half) chamber?

 

[tonybloke]

Bees do not move eggs and I am astonsished that anyone one this fine forum would think that. It will be a worker laid (unfertilized) egg and nothing will come of that queen cell - the contents die.

and you evidence is?????

I have seen a single queen cell above a good, undamaged, wire excluder.
there was a queen in it, as we watched her hatch when we pulled the frame out of the super.
there were 2 other beekeepers there at the time, btw

 

[chrismcd]

Bees will be bees!

Hey, we are talking about bees!

There are a number of possibilities.

Queens have been known to squeeze through QX's - although they are usually slim, sleek virgins or recently mated ones. All that effort just to lay one egg sounds a bit improbable.

I cannot think of any reason why a worker should not move larvae or eggs about. A very quick Google pulls up this page

http://www.texasdrone.com/Honeybee Biology.htm

And, above the QX there is likely to be a shortage of queen substance, so the workers would well decide to raise it as a queen.

I agree with Tonybloke. At this time of year a queen is a real asset, put it in a nuc!

 

[Blue Spinnaker]

Mmmmm? I too have had the same. A QC with an egg and lots of Qcups. I changed to 14x12's this year. Put the new 14x12 on top of the old brood box, waited for it to be drawn and the Q laying, swapped them over ie 14x12 now on bottom, put on the QE. This trapped a lot of drone which I hope most have now been let out but it has been so cold + I have been away for a couple of weeks. Have you done the same? I'm not worried ref a swarm...yet;-) I can only think it is to do with once been a brood (and half) chamber?

I have only ever had one 14x12 brood box...

There weren't any other eggs up there - I had a good look - it was mostly full of honey. The Queen was from early last year, so she's not a virgin.

We'll see what has happened when I look again.

 

[The Cumbrian]

I cannot think of any reason why a worker should not move larvae or eggs about. A very quick Google pulls up this page

http://www.texasdrone.com/Honeybee Biology.htm

I did the same google and found the same page. However on digging a little deeper I found the following;

A question was recently asked about whether bees move eggs and or
larvae. Mark Winston and I once did a study in which we made
colonies of Africanized bees queenless, then followed all events
related to queen rearing and swarming. After becoming queenless, the
bees constructed queen cups that were empty; following that either
eggs or larvae (Mark would have the details) appeared in the cells
and were reared into queens. Since the queen had been removed and
females (queens) were reared, it is logical to assume that the eggs
were moved by the bees.
The second situation we have seen several times, in which queen
cells are produced in honey supers above a queen excluder. In these
cases all other brood was contained below the queen excluder, so I am
fairly certain that the queen did not lay the eggs in the queen cells
herself. Again it is most likely that workers moved the eggs/larvae
up into the cells.
It seems virtually impossible to imagine that bees would steal
eggs or larvae from other colonies.
There is another possibility to explain the queenless colony that
got a new queen. It is well known that worker bees can lay eggs, but
usually these are haploid (unfertilized) and develop into drones.
One bee race, the Cape honey bee (A. mellifera capensis) is notorious
for having workers that lay diploid eggs (with two sets of
chromosomes). The number of chromosomes gets halved in the formation
of the egg, but then a polar body with one set of chromosomes fuses
with the egg nucleus to form a diploid nucleus that is analagous to a
fertilized egg, and the bees can rear females from these. It turns
out this physiological adaptation is present at low frequency in
other bee races. I believe it was W.C. Roberts or O. Mackensen
discovered that 1-2% of colonies of other bee races, in the absence
of brood from which to rear a queen, would still eventually become
queen-right, apparently through the production of diploid worker eggs.
Hope this may clarify the situation somewhat.

Dr. Gard W. Otis
Dept. of Environmental Biology
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario
Canada N1G 2W1
[email protected]


I would be interested in others views on the above.