I have a small hive from a trap out with a brand spanking new queen that just started laying about a week ago. I just looked in on them and she's pretty much filled 5 out of 8 medium frames with brood in just a few days. A few days ago it was full of stores, now it's full of brood. I know that I've read that new queens sometimes really hit the ground running, but I don't know if this is good or bad. I'm feeding of course and I gave them another box a few days ago. The foragers are working hard, but the stores are going down. It looks like there will be a population boom just about the time that the season ends. As long as I'm prepared to feed is this all good?
And to top it off there's one nice capped queen cell on the bottom of a frame.
Have you seen the queen lately, or signs that she is still there, i.e. lots of eggs everywhere? That capped queen cell would lead me to believe that the bees are trying to supercede her. If they are, they may have done away with her already. Just something to keep an eye out for.
A population boom going into winter is great. The more young bees that you have going into winter, the better chance your bees will survive. Feed, feed, feed heavy syrup! The bees will quickly store that away as honey for winter. But keep a close eye on them as winter progresses if you feel their stores are light. You can always supplement their stores with dry sugar on the inner cover if they are eating up everything too fast.
Will a new queen be able to mate this time of year. Drones may be in short supply.
Mark
I didn't see the queen today, but that doesn't really mean all that much - I'm not the best queen spotter. As far as eggs - there is brood in all stages from tiny larvae to just capped in the last day or two - every frame except two have brood on them, but it's mostly new white wax and eggs are hard to see against it - for me anyway.
There are drones flying right now - by the time a queen hatches who knows. I guess whatever will be will be. I'm tempted to put the frame with the one cell on it into a nuc as a back up. I'm not going to destroy it in any event. Is one of these really something to worry about?
(http://doorgarden.com/images/critters/bee-pictures/queen-cell.JPG)
Maybe it's not a queen cell? Wishful thinking.
Not wishful thinking. It looks like a queen cup to me. You can find them about anytime. Nothing I would worry about. I will be very surprised if you ever get a queen out of that.