I have two hives, well, one now :'( My Hawaiian-Italian hive made it through the winter, but without their queen. I looked yesterday, and there were no eggs anywhere in the hive. Not sure what happened to her - she was laying fine in the fall. Might have been the fall formic acid treatment.
Anyway, I gave them a frame of eggs and brood from my other hive - Russian - about three weeks ago. Yesterday there were three queen cells on the frame. One large cell, open at the end (I'm hoping a virgin queen emerged and is waiting to mate), and two mini-queen cells, sealed. These were weird; they looked like runt queen cells, half as long and half as wide, but they were capped. Half-castes?
Anyway, I put another frame of eggs in there from the Russian hive, and will see what develops. I am not going to weaken my good hive any more. I have local queens on order, but they will not arrive for a month or so.
- What are the odd miniature queen cells? I'm sorry I have no pics.
- Anyone know if a virgin queen this early in the season has a hope of mating? Assuming that is what I have, will she wait until drones are flying, or is she done since there are none now?
Thanks.
Grid
You sure you're not seeing just the tip of a full size cell? Many times queen cells at the bottom of a frame will have comb built around them and look like a mini-cell. Queen cells do, however, vary in size quite a bit. Look at pics of a cell bar after the cells are capped and there will a lot of variance.