Should you leave 1 or 2 emergency queen cells

[DRam]

We did a colony split last week, and when we inspected the queen-less brood box today there are emergency queen cells as we expected/hoped to see. We have removed 5 queen cells and left the two largest and most sculpted.

I have read conflicting accounts on if we should leave 1 or 2 queen cells, but it is a small enough colony as it is and I am concerned that we might lose half the bees if the first queen to hatch swarms.

We have 4 days to make up our minds, should we leave it as it is with two capped queen cells (they are on the same frame maybe 4 inches apart) or pick the biggest and cut the other out.

Thoughts please...

 

[Sutty]

I take it your split was without queen cells being produced? If so I am in a similar position. My take on this is that there is no swarming impulse, just emergency requeening. On that basis I'm planning to leave them alone for 3 weeks+ and depend on the bees to pick the "best" queen cell and destroy the rest. I'm not expecting that to prompt swarming.....

 

[oliver90owner]

Rearing a queen from a weak colony (presumably not more than 50% strength of the parent?) is poor practice. Expect a runty queen which may even go through a queen excluder. A likely candidate for supercedure later in the year, too. She may be good, but you are taking a chance splitting this way.

Always leave two cells - unless you can afford the colony being queenless for several more weeks. Just think about it - what if that one cell does not provide a queen?