Queen cell - why?

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MissBeehavin'

New Bee
Joined
Jun 11, 2011
Messages
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Location
South Staffs
Hive Type
WBC
Number of Hives
2
Found an early Queen cell in one of my hives. The Queen/colony are just a year old & she has been laying brilliantly so far. I am feeding & have a super on from before the weather changed - why have the bees done this? I made up my mind not to use a rejected Queen to form another colony as I don't want too many hives too soon but am gutted at the prospect of killing her next week.
 
Found an early Queen cell in one of my hives. The Queen/colony are just a year old & she has been laying brilliantly so far. I am feeding & have a super on from before the weather changed - why have the bees done this? I made up my mind not to use a rejected Queen to form another colony as I don't want too many hives too soon but am gutted at the prospect of killing her next week.

why kill the old queen?
better to make up a nuc with the q/c, and wait until new queen is mated and laying well before killing old queen and uniting.

as to why the queen cell? it's because they are bees!!
 
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I have cleaned out the Q cell and will see if it is repeated next weekend, am hoping it may be and one off because they have spent so much time inside due to weather. Have never united colonies so far.
 
What stage of queen cell was it - play cup / egg / larva / capped? A single, if charged, sounds more likely to be supercedure of an underperforming or damaged queen than a swarming situation to me - did you see the queen before destroying the queen cell?
It would seem to me more logical to AS then recombine later rather than destroying your mated queen and relying on a virgin getting mated succesfully at the moment.

Rich.
 
It was a slightly enlarged cell containing a grub surrounded by royal jelly. I did see the queen and she has been a fantastic queen all year laying 7+ frames.
 
why have the bees done this?

Think of the colony as a single organism. To multiply, as all animals wish to do, involves swarming, otherwise bees would still be in one single colony since bee-time began!

Jc
 
I understand it is their instinct but hoped they would have stuck with her a bit longer!
 
I understand your frustration but bees is bees and it is instinct. If this one queen cell is upsetting you then all I can say (in the nicest possible way) is chill out. Your bees will frustrate you and drive you mad, they will chew holes on some frames and build out on others, they will swarm when you least expect or want it and then appear to go queen less when really all she has is a headache. All we can do is to try and stay one step ahead of them. A queen cell is telling you that your bees want to procreate or replace their queen. Take the hint and think about what you are going to do next. Tearing down queen cells is one way to go but that wont last long before you miss one and they're gone.....read up about artificial swarms and prepare yourself to make one.....soon. You can always reunite your bees with the old queen if you wish. Reuniting is easy. When you get to that point just ask.
All I would say is you want to try and read your bees needs and help them to achieve that in a manner controlled by you. Best of luck
E
 
...
All I would say is you want to try and read your bees needs and help them to achieve that in a manner controlled by you.

Miss Beehavin', you might be asking yourself whether the bees are becoming a bit cramped in their single brood box (10 frames with "7+" of brood) wbc, and whether there was anything that might be done in that regard that might help them to avoid thinking of "moving on".

Since you have likely got sugar syrup, if anything, in that super, would it be worth considering putting the Queen Excluder away for a while and sticking the shallow box under your brood box?
 
Thank you for your help Enrico. I have done an AS before to get this particular colony but plans to unite the colonies later on will be impossible if the hive raises another Q cell which I will then have to leave in. I am really trying to end this year with just the 2 I started with.
 
The answer is in your comment 7 frames.

The bees want more from her and she cannot seemingly deliver. They (I think from the evidence) want to supercede her.

PH
 
I have cleaned out the Q cell and will see if it is repeated next weekend, am hoping it may be and one off because they have spent so much time inside due to weather. Have never united colonies so far.

I would check in 5 days as bees in swarm mode can build a queen cell and cap it and swarm in less than 7 days especially when queen cells have been removed previously
 
MissBeehavin, first off you need to determine what type of QCs they are building (as suggested by Rich0909).

At the risk of repeating myself ad nausem there is an excellent guide on QCs and what to do here.

I understand it is their instinct but hoped they would have stuck with her a bit longer!

I think your assumption is that this is a supercedure, if as you say the queen is healthy and good, this would be unlikely.

Healthy bees make swarm cells this time of year in order to replace the current queen that will take off (swarm) with half(ish) the colony. This is the way the colony divides to make increase.

Killing good Queens (in my opnion) is not a good thing to do. You want to keep that queen (I think there was a thread on here recently about Queens being at their best in the second year, probably no conincidence as their second year is when they would take off and start building a colony from scratch in a new home).

If the colony has set itself on a trajectory where it wants to make increase and divide then you should be grateful for this. You should also give yourself a pat on the back that you've got them through the winter strong enough to be able to do this. You won't stop them swarming by removing the swarm cells. They'll only build more and more likely swarm early. So you may risk the colony swarming and not leaving behind a replacement queen.

As others have suggested (if indeed they are swarm cells) I would strongly consider making an AS or otherwise you risk loosing your queen. If you don't want it then you can always sell the nuc to a local beek.

Bobster
 
:iagree:

I have a colony whose queen I am about to christen Houdini because of her constant efforts to 'escape' despite lots of space etc (suspect Carniolan stock...). But I know that the pampering that I gave them through the winter has paid off, and the colony is strong, if I can keep her from doing what comes naturally...!
 
if supercedure then they sense something you don't
if swarming it's a sign of success - they feel strong enough to let her go off and found a new colony whilst they raise her offspring as new queen.
 

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