Superceding

[enrico]

I keep reading , I found two queen cells so I presumed they were superceding so I left them to it!
No offence to any one who has typed this lately by the way
Does everyone believe this? In my opinion supercedure is a relatively rare occurrence in swarming season. I see it later in the season but in the middle of the swarming season I would not be prepared to take the risk. Bees don't generally supercede they swarm because that is how they reproduce. Anyone agree or disagree?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Depends. I have two superseding just now because the queens are failing. But in the absence of such I would presume anything is a swarm cell.

 

[jeff33]

I have had 3 supercedure since mid-april with the first 2 laying since last weekend. I would generally agree that it's rare at this time of the year but as Dani points out if there is an issue with a queen they will change her.
I removed and nuc the queen from one of the hives which was superceding. Sure enough, the nuc is now superceding that queen.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I keep reading , I found two queen cells so I presumed they were superceding so I left them to it!
Does everyone believe this?

It's just the usual parotting of the belief that if a QC is in the middle of a frame it's supersedure
If it's at the bottom of a frame it's swarming
And they don't get much further of thinking about it than that.

 

[gwt_uk]

Never had Supercedure cells in a colony as far as I am aware....always swarm cells.

 

[Finman]

Never had Supercedure cells in a colony as far as I am aware....always swarm cells.

How many years' experience?

 

[madasafish]

I usually find supercedure happens in Autumn : Mother and Daughter syndrome. But after a really bad year for mating in 2021 due to weather, I have had two supercedures this year.My hive notes show a mated marked Q in March : and an unmarked one in May. QCs pulled down so no idea of location.

 

[gwt_uk]

How many years' experience?

4 years

 

[holmbee]

I keep reading , I found two queen cells so I presumed they were superceding so I left them to it!
No offence to any one who has typed this lately by the way
Does everyone believe this? In my opinion supercedure is a relatively rare occurrence in swarming season. I see it later in the season but in the middle of the swarming season I would not be prepared to take the risk. Bees don't generally supercede they swarm because that is how they reproduce. Anyone agree or disagree?

I have had one supercedure so far this year. The queen was clearly struggling so had two sealed QCs on next inspection and no Queen. Still about same number of workers/drones. Cells were in centre at bottom of frame and halfway down one side. Kept the cell the workers were most interested in.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I have had two supercedures this year.My hive notes show a mated marked Q in March : and an unmarked one in May

Sounds like a perfect supersedure, which could easily have happened the autumn before with the old queen finally being disposed of in May - one year I had three generations all living happily together until the end of the summer