I have a hive that has been queenless for two weeks and I've been adding frames of eggs hoping that they'd make a new queen. I now have three queen cells! One capped, one with larve and one with an egg! All on the bottom of frames in the UPPER deep. I can't imagine that they'd swarm, they don't have a queen to leave behind and have plenty of space.
These bees balled the last queen a week after she was released from her cage (a requeening attempt). I'm not sure why, she seemed to be doing fine. Maybe when I opened the hive it just happened to be bad timing and they blamed the disturbance on her.
Never-the-less, I'm excited about the possibility of my first queen being born but I don't want her to fly away. Any thoughts as to the positioning of the queen cells? Seems like between the two boxes is the center of the hive so it must be superceedure...right?
If they were in fact queenless and they are raising a queen from eggs that you supplied, I would call that an emergency queen cell. Any where in the brood area of the hive will be fine. She should be laying in about 28 days.
Congratulations,
Steve
On bottom of frame or on bottom bars. Are you sure they did not swarm?
You should not just release a queen but should leave her in the cage so they can get used to her smell. If they have a virgin queen that has not started laying yet or laying workers they will just kill every queen you put in.
I wouldn't worry about the position, sounds like you are on your way to a queen. If it was on the bottom deep bottom frame then I would worry, but as it is, wait.
JC
leave them where you found them. do not worry about swarming now. they should be happy to have a queen and stay.
she has to fly away to mate. just hope she makes it back. ;)
Me too! Though the swallows have stopped their feeding around the hives so I'm optimistic. I've heard that you should leave a hive alone when they are rearing a queen. Is there a time that is most critical? I don't want to mess this up!