Supersedure cells, royal jelly no larvae!

[ultreen1]

I have 2 queen cells in the centre of a brood frame, last Sunday there was an egg in one of them. Today after an inspection I notice lots of royal jelly in both but no larvae.
Will they fill a play cup with RJ? Will they remove the larvae if they don't need a new queen?
I didn't spot the queen but there were eggs present and just put a second super on as they have drawn and filled 8 super frames.

 

[justme]

How can you be sure there is no larvae? without digging out all the royal jelly you are unlikely to be able to see a young larvae.

 

[Poly Hive]

If just hatched they are near invisible. Give it a couple of days and in the mean time there is Spec savers...LOL

PH

 

[Russel]

Hi Darren,

Can you get Dianne to have a look or comment?

Russ

 

[ultreen1]

How can you be sure there is no larvae? without digging out all the royal jelly you are unlikely to be able to see a young larvae.

Unless they are Submerged in RJ (can the be?) there's nothin there. By my timing the one should be close to being capped.

 

[ultreen1]

If just hatched they are near invisible. Give it a couple of days and in the mean time there is Spec savers...LOL

PH

I agree, I'll leave them to it have a look on weds.
I'm Booking an eye test for Monday!

 

[ultreen1]

Hi Darren,

Can you get Dianne to have a look or comment?

Russ

Hi russel, I was going to give her a call today and invite her round on weds. She's a busy lady on Sunday what with badminton and bees! LOL

 

[ultreen1]

I'm a bit gutted I didn't take my camera with me as the one queen cell had 2 drone cells above it so it looked like a "meat and 2 veg"

 

[alanf]

I have 2 queen cells in the centre of a brood frame, last Sunday there was an egg in one of them. Today after an inspection I notice lots of royal jelly in both but no larvae.
Will they fill a play cup with RJ? Will they remove the larvae if they don't need a new queen?
I didn't spot the queen but there were eggs present and just put a second super on as they have drawn and filled 8 super frames.

Last Sunday an egg would be 1-3 days old, a week later you expect the cell to be capped or about to be. However, bees change their minds for all sorts of reasons. I saw an artificial swarm go wrong earlier this year. Take out a dozen queen cells, leaving one but an elusive queen ends up in the same box*. A week later the queen cell had been torn down so whether it was disturbance, weather, flow conditions or something else they changed their intention to swarm. At some point they must have removed the larva and that would have left some royal jelly in the cell, something like what you saw today.

* This went in the 'got away with it but learnt something' book, it is NOT recommended practice.

 

[MuswellMetro]

if it was near drone larva then it could also have been a drone egg in there, i never trust the viabilty of QC near drone larva...........or just simply the larva got to cold

 

[Finno]

The royal jelly in an abandoned queen cell will have a dried out appearance and a rough surface due to workers eating it.

 

[ultreen1]

The royal jelly in an abandoned queen cell will have a dried out appearance and a rough surface due to workers eating it.

In the one cell it looked all broken up like curdled milk!

 

[susbees]

Week before last - two charged cells in a hive that hadn't made any previous swarm preparations. Both had had a largish larva removed....shape remained in RJ. Today, no further plans.

Bees can change their minds...

 

[Teemore]

Week before last - two charged cells in a hive that hadn't made any previous swarm preparations. Both had had a largish larva removed....shape remained in RJ. Today, no further plans.

Bees can change their minds...

Ditto - even down to the approximate timing.

 

[ultreen1]

Update on the 2 queen cells:

1 has been pulled down

The other is full of RJ but is empty, the RJ has the same curdled effect as the one from Sunday.

My mentor and I disagreed on the presence of a larvae but we did agree I had better eyes! Lol

 

[adrian wilford]

i got a pair of specs with slightly stronger lenses, just for beekeeping can sure now see those eggs

 

[ultreen1]

I struggle on the darker comb in bad light but can still see eggs without glasses. Young'ish eyes I guess!