Fatbee
Field Bee
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2012
- Messages
- 626
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Buckinghamshire
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 7
All,
I inspected one of my strongest hives today with a 2013 queen and having seen a lot of play cups last week these had now turned in to about 8 queen cells with a larva at slightly different stages. Interestingly one was capped and I immediately thought 'darn it' they must have swarmed. Imagine my surprise when looking across a frame my red dotted queen from last year was still there. I've done an A/S but it did get me wondering if others have experienced a queen not swarming even with a capped QC. The weather is a bit cloudy but the bees are in to the OSR well so don't think the weather would prevent a swarm.
The books all say if you find a capped cell then she has probably already gone but not in this case! I don't think it was supersedure because cells were at bottom of frames and she had been laying very strongly. Either way, hopefully the A/S will right it and I will have another colony although I left the capped cell plus another with a big fat larva in case the capped cell was a dud. I'm thinking I should have actually looked in this cell and left two in larva form but easy to see this sat back at home!
Have others found capped Q cells with the queen still in residence that weren't supersedure cells?
Fatbee.
I inspected one of my strongest hives today with a 2013 queen and having seen a lot of play cups last week these had now turned in to about 8 queen cells with a larva at slightly different stages. Interestingly one was capped and I immediately thought 'darn it' they must have swarmed. Imagine my surprise when looking across a frame my red dotted queen from last year was still there. I've done an A/S but it did get me wondering if others have experienced a queen not swarming even with a capped QC. The weather is a bit cloudy but the bees are in to the OSR well so don't think the weather would prevent a swarm.
The books all say if you find a capped cell then she has probably already gone but not in this case! I don't think it was supersedure because cells were at bottom of frames and she had been laying very strongly. Either way, hopefully the A/S will right it and I will have another colony although I left the capped cell plus another with a big fat larva in case the capped cell was a dud. I'm thinking I should have actually looked in this cell and left two in larva form but easy to see this sat back at home!
Have others found capped Q cells with the queen still in residence that weren't supersedure cells?
Fatbee.