Queen Cells in drone-laying colony

[boywonder]

Hi, the basic question is whether a drone-laying colony (for I am sure I have one nuc - possibly two - with DLW) ever attempt to feed their larvae up with royal jelly and make a (dud) Queen Cell? Sorry if that is a stupid question.

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[Spikedog]

If Laying workers one can find them in desperation attempting to make Q Cells with drone larvae. I have heard of them being called King Cells . Its unclear if you have DLQ or LW's - the latter is neigh impossible to remedy.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Hi, the basic question is whether a drone-laying colony (for I am sure I have one nuc - possibly two - with DLW) ever attempt to feed their larvae up with royal jelly and make a (dud) Queen Cell? Sorry if that is a stupid question.

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Not a stupid question! it gives hope to many that there might be a queen on the way, well unfortunately it never hatches and often rots in the cell, or just becomes a drone. I see this all the time in laying worker colonies.
I think its something this overlooked and not talked about much, but is the cause of much disappointment.

 

[Fritillary]

The "King cells" I saw in one of my hives without a queen must have started out looking like queen cells but had become very long and distorted - obviously not the real thing.

 

[B+.]

Not a stupid question! it gives hope to many that there might be a queen on the way, well unfortunately it never hatches and often rots in the cell, or just becomes a drone. I see this all the time in laying worker colonies.
I think its something this overlooked and not talked about much, but is the cause of much disappointment.

You also get sealed cells containing royal jelly but no pupa. I had one that didn't emerge in my incubator recently, when I opened it up, there was no sign of a pupa.
Don't assume that a sealed cell means a queen is under development. It is, by no means, certain.

 

[Eyeman]

I saw this interesting collection of QC's & Drone cells. I emailed Wyatt Magnum who wrote an interesting article in the Am Bee J on queen cells. His reply:

Yes, I think the lower right horizontal cells are drone. The rare cell in the picture is the extra long “queen” cell mid way down projecting to the right with its end shaped like a slightly swollen bulb. That shape is consistent with a queen cell containing a drone pupa. The bees picked the wrong gender when starting the cell and the larva survived. Very little is known about such drone pupae. In q-cells, I have seen them alive and dead.

 

[colinc]

I had some clusters just like that in burr comb between frames recently not a DLQ colony though just in free comb


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[Finman]

.
I have not seen king cells in my hives but I have often drone larvae in Queen cells.

Do not make more mystery around desperate queenless bees.

 

[For want of a better word]

Hi, the basic question is whether a drone-laying colony (for I am sure I have one nuc - possibly two - with DLW) ever attempt to feed their larvae up with royal jelly and make a (dud) Queen Cell? Sorry if that is a stupid question.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

I have seen this in the so called buckfasts ( Hybrid) colonies that I once kept... the drones well fed on royal jelly seem to grow up into very big drones... an attempt to continue their haphazard genetic abnormality perhaps from badly mated imported exotics?

Yeghes da

 

[lilybetbee]

I found several charged QC in a hive that was almost all drone brood last week, I wasn't sure if they would have found a few fertilised eggs from a failing queen or were desperate.
Asked at the apiary meeting and all the experienced beeks said they would only draw cells with fertilised eggs so this is interesting.

Went to inspect this week and they have all disappeared.

 

[Finman]

Asked at the apiary meeting and all the experienced beeks said they would only draw cells with fertilised eggs so this is .....

They are wrong in this thing.

This week I gove a mated Queen to the small nuc, which had been queenless a month and they had 4 queen cells. Only way is that workers have laid them. And many cases more.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Its unclear if you have DLQ or LW's - the latter is neigh impossible to remedy.

Giving the LW colony a ripe queen cell works more often than not.