supecidure cells and normal queen cells in same hive?

[beeboybee]

oh really confused i have just checked my hives, one has now got 8 queen cells along the bottom of the frames and 1 rather large supercidure cell half way up a frame, i did a very rushed inspection 8 days ago and did not notice anything, all the cells are now capped!!!!!!
i a am rather annoyed with myself for missing these cells.

why would i get both types of cells in the hive, if it was supercedure i would leave them too it.
if it was swarm cells i would do a AS and leave only one cell in original hive?

what oh what to do?

 

[plumberman]

a single cell on the side of the frame might be supercedure, but if you have this AND QC's along the bottom you need to regard it as swarming and act accordingly.

That is leave one/two queen cells (depending on how likely it is the colony will throw a cast)

 

[Midland Beek]

Swarming.

 

[beeboybee]

i have just been reading old threads and i think i will pop back to the hive and get rid of the cells apart from one..... any advise on choosing the lucky one the supercidure cell looked the biggest?

once i have done this how quickly should i recheck for more Qcells?

thanks everyone

 

[MuswellMetro]

5 days after the last egg laid ,then all the eggs will be larva and past the critical period for converting to QC

 

[oliver90owner]

5 days

I say six, but fairly irrelevant here.

Bees do change their collective minds. The supercedure cell was likely occupied first, but they went into swarm mode sometime after the inital start of the supercedure cell.

One would be unlikely to find things happening the other way - swarm cells first and supercedure later!

When you pop back in, check for eggs - she may still be there!

If enough bees I would be taking a split as insurance - that supercedure cell could be a dud (but probably is not, and represents the best queen)!

If I was sure of capping date (which you are not), I would leave selection until a day before emergence. The cells (or the contents, rather) are much more robust at that stage and you can see if the cell is 'ripe', so there should be no excuse for picking a dud cell.

RAB

 

[wondervet]

Two of our colonies did this this spring. Lovely single supercedure cell centre frame in both. Left them alone to get on with it. Next inspection 10 days later both got multi swarm cells along bottom bars and swarms departed. Lesson learned!

 

[Tom Bick]

Yes had the same thing on two hives this year, classic supercedure cell in each hive and after a few days the bees thought that they are rather good at that and went into swarm mode.

Supercedure in the summer can be a different animal than in the autumn

 

[JohnSB]

<beginners question>

I note in the Ted Hooper book that there is no clear method for determining whether bees are superseding or swarming. Why then do we often talk about swarm and supercedure cells, as if we do know the difference? I understand that some cells are 'emergency' cells and are (always / usually?) found in the centre of a frame. Is it perhaps that these 'emergency' cells always supercede, but others can do either?

</beginners question>

 

[Steve Dyer]

<beginners question>

I note in the Ted Hooper book that there is no clear method for determining whether bees are superseding or swarming. Why then do we often talk about swarm and supercedure cells, as if we do know the difference? I understand that some cells are 'emergency' cells and are (always / usually?) found in the centre of a frame. Is it perhaps that these 'emergency' cells always supercede, but others can do either?

</beginners question>

I thought that emergency cells were ones where a hive becomes queenless and a normal brood cell is extended out and down and the egg fed royal jelly to become a queen. This is said to produce poor stunted queens but I don't think that's always true.

A supercedure cell is a "proper" queen cell built as such, and the failing queen is persuaded to lay in it to produce a single new queen.

Swarm cells are as supersedure cells except there are more of them and they tend to be at the bottom or sides of frames.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Don't just hope that a queencell is a supercedure cell. That's not the way to manage a colony. Remember that bees don't read books - not even Ted Hooper. Plan for a swarm.

If you do HOPE they will supercede, then clip the queen. If they do swarm you won't lose your bees and 7 times out of 10 will find the queen somewhere and can re-use or cull as you wish.

 

[beeboybee]

oooh update on the situation.
posting this up as i am sure i did the wrong thing but hopefully some pointers as to what i should do next time would be great.

so at lunch time today raced from work to check the hive, found supercidure cell open. about 4 swarm cells had been torn down and where just stubby lumps left. there were 3 cells left that looked sealed so i cut these out.
checked al the rest of the frames for any new cells but none to be found.
hastily put hive back together as they where very tetchy (weather also bad)

opened the three cells out of interest to find one completely empty and dry no royal jelly. the other two had very young pupae inside.

so i hope best outcome is virgin queen hatched and opened remaining cells.
worst out come i know have a hive full of virgin queens waiting to swarm!!!

steep learning curve ahead!

 

[Swarm]

Not necessarily a bad thing. The warder bees will be keeping these debutantes in their cells. The confusion caused during inspection can upset their plans, I had this last year with an emerged cell and another beginning to emerge. I opened it and allowed her out, matters took their own course.

 

[Poly Hive]

How to know the difference? Know your bees.

My sup strain would throw a bunch of cells and I knew they were swarming.

They would produce two or three and they were in sup mode, and mostly they discretely did it on the heather and the first I knew was an unmarked/clipped queen in the spring.

PH

 

[beeboybee]

what would happen if i bought in a new queen at this point?
never been 100% happy with the temperament of this colony and who knows what it will be like now.......

 

[Poly Hive]

If you buy a queen what will you do with the queen in residence?

PH

 

[beeboybee]

until mated she will be hard to find, but i think i should wait until mated then pop in a Nuc box as insurance

 

[Mike a]

They would produce two or three and they were in sup mode, and mostly they discretely did it on the heather and the first I knew was an unmarked/clipped queen in the spring.

PH

Impressive, they clipped the queen for you.