Supercedure advise please

[simonorchard]

Hi
I took advantage of the warm weather on Friday in London to inspect my 2nd colony. Its a small colony and I suspect the queen (new from June last year) isn't very strong - I had taken a queen cell from my other hive and stuck it on the brood comb last year - wasn't a very big Q cell but she hatched/mated and made it through the winter.
However, despite there being plenty of stores and plenty of room, and loads of pollen coming in, there were hardly any eggs and only small amounts of patchy sealed brood. The Q was there but looking fairly relaxed!

On one of the brood combs there a two nice big queen cells - with grubs, but not sealed (on Friday).

So are they superceding her and do I just let them do their stuff?
Will they swarm with the old queen when the cells are sealed? (and should I therefore be doing an artificial swarm)
If they don't swarm how is the old queen disposed of? Will she not try to kill the new Q's before they hatch?
Assuming new queen is victorious, will the new queen be able to mate at this time of year - there's no drones out there are there?

Any help/advice greatly appreciated.
Pic attached
Simon

 

[rae]

I'm not qualified to properly comment on what you are seeing in the hive (others are more experienced than me) but there are plenty of drones in Berkshire. All of my strong colonies have fully laid up drone frames, capped, so we will be heaving with them in a few weeks.

My thinking on what you are seeing:

- If your queen was in good form, you'd be rammed with brood by now (esp in London)
- So you are probably right to think that they are superceding - if those queen cells have larvae.
- Those look close to being capped, I assume the larva is pretty big?
- With a bit of luck you'll have a virgin out in 2 weeks or so, and hopefully mated after that.

You're slightly ahead of two of my colonies that are queenless (well, certainly not laying, haven't been through the boxes properly) - I've given both of them eggs from strong hives, so we'll see what they do!

 

[MuswellMetro]

they are a bit early ,so i think they are not swarm cells but superscedure cells unless the brood area is honey blocked by overfeeding

the first superscedure virgin should kill the second virgin but no always

so i doubt they will swarm but hey ,they are Bees, we have had them swarm on the 14th April before.

so when will she mate, capped today or tomorrow and emerge in a week time

i am sure there will be warm weather by the end of #April, but my bees just 10 miles north of you don't have much drones hatched yet

 

[Midland Beek]

Text book case of supersedure, and you've hit the nail on the head with your analysis. I would be inclined to leave them alone and hope they know what they are doing.

If you were really keen on ensuring the survival of this colony you could buy a new queen, assuming they are available at the moment.

In addition, if the numbers of this poorer colony are dwindling you could give a little sealed brood about to emerge from the stronger colony to boost numbers.

An alternative strategy would be to kill the 'defective' queen and unite your two colonies.

 

[oliver90owner]

I'm with MB here. They know she is no good and are trying to replace her before she goes totally defunct.

Weather, let alone available drones, may preclude a satisfactory mating. They will likely struggle along with her until the virgin gets mated. They may even supercede again, later in the season, who knows. Fingers crossed they do it successfully.

Not a lot to do unless you can replace her with a laying queen.

Regards, RAB

 

[richardbees]

ditto the aboves, just leave them and hope for the best.

those look very much like their last desperate efforts to keep the colony going

 

[rae]

What is the earliest time queens are available? We are going to re-check our hospital cases next weekend, but they will be pretty weak by the time they get her mated.

I'm assuming there won't be UK mated queens until beginning of May?

 

[broandy]

simonorchard
How many frames of bees in your hive as per your pics it looks very weak, best just leave them to it.
Andy

 

[simonorchard]

There are bees on about half of the 11 frames.

...So in supercedure what happens to the old queen?
Why doesn't she kill off the newbies in the Q Cells?

Will the new queen/queens kill her or will both live happily together and both lay - Ted Hooper seems to think this can happen - and if this was to happen and I get rid of the old queen - surely I've no way of knowing whether the new queen has actually mated and is laying - the eggs could still be coming from the old queen (unless I suddenly see masses of egg laying - and then that's probably a sign that I've got a new egg laying Q.

Sorry - so many questions!

 

[MJBee]

It is the workers that realize the queen is failing and raise supercedure cells. They protect them from the failing queen and ensure they are kept apart until mating is successful and the "new" queen starts laying. At that point mother and daughter seem to live quite happily together.

Last season I had a colony with 2 queens from June into the winter, she is not there now so either snuffed it or was chucked out

 

[simonorchard]

So MJ Bee - then this is a good thing to have two co-habiting queens - 2 queens = more brood?? Or does it confuse the colony who won't work as efficiently

 

[MJBee]

I wouldn't say it was a "good thing". In my case the old queen was obviously failing - sudden increase in the number of drones being produced - she had been mis-mated. The bees realized this and superceded her while she was still laying some female (worker) eggs.

I decided to requeen, and it was while going through the colony, with a new queen in my pocket, that I found an unmarked virgin running about. I left them to it and as I said they both went into the winter but only the Blue queen is there now and going great guns.

I don't know, but suspect, that as soon as the new queen began to lay the workers removed the excess drone eggs because the worker/drone ratio returned to normal.

 

[MuswellMetro]

.

I don't know, but suspect, that as soon as the new queen began to lay the workers removed the excess drone eggs because the worker/drone ratio returned to normal.

i think they just stop feeding the old queen and she dies, i had Mother and daughter last year in august and by late september both still there but the old queen was very very thin,

 

[MJBee]

Quote i think they just stop feeding the old queen and she dies, i had Mother and daughter last year in august and by late september both still there but the old queen was very very thin, Unquote.

I think they may reduce her rations but I don't think they stop, last year my 2 queen colony ran from June to October - pretty slow starvation