size of larvae

frenchbees · Mar 25, 2011

Bees wintered on a brood box and super, when I opened the hive yesterday I broke open some cells that had been made in a cluster between the two sets of frames, about 10 in all.
The larvae looked a bit big!
I found one outside the hive this morning and measured it, about 17mm long and 7 mm wide, no leg developement. Hoping they are drones , there was a bit of drone brood.
Please tell me they can't be Queen cells.

freethorpe bees · Mar 25, 2011

It sounds like drone brood on brace comb to me. My drones are whopping great ones too (?!). bee-smillie

Biddly · Mar 25, 2011

I had and did exactly the same on my first inspection this year on Wednesday. I overwintered on a brood and a half and when i took the super frame out it broke the brace comb between the bottom super and top brood box frame exposing 8 large white larvae. The size took me by surprise too. I also had capped drone cells on the frames.

The colony is Italian bees and there was 6 full frames of brood in both boxes with stores on the other outer frames so i put a super on. When i peeked at lunch time it was all but the 2 end frames either side were completely drawn out and the end ones were half drawn. Done in 48 hours.

MJBee · Mar 25, 2011

On some of my hives there is a 30mm gap between the bottom of the brood frames and the mesh (home made OMF). The bees have built very neat strips of brood comb in the gap which is great because they haven't "modified" the worker comb, and I can remove a strip every now and again to check varroa levels. In answer to OP - Almost certainly drone brood - a picture would help.

frenchbees · Mar 26, 2011

bee larvae

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Here is a picture of the larvae. it is taken about 24 hours after I disturbed it (had to charge batteries for the camera) so it has shrunk a bit.