Is there a difference between a swarm cell and a queen cell?
It depends on the strength of the hive acebird. If you have a very strong hive that is making swarm cells, the eggs are fed from the start with royal jelly to make queens and there is lots of bees in the hive to feed and take optimum care of the queen cells. On the other hand supercedure cells or emergency cells can be less than optimum depending on the strength of the colony if the colony is less than optimum the cells wont get feed and taken care of properly resulting in small queens that are less than ideal.
a swarm cell is a queen cell that is made for the purpose of throwing a reproductive or space making swarm.
they are usually positioned on the lower edges of comb and some times along the bottom bars.
they are common in the spring and in honeybound or overcrowded hives.
other types of queen cells include supercedure and emergency queen cells that are made on the face of the combs.
all swarm cells are queen cells, but not all queen cells are swarm cells.
make sense?
bailey
Quoteall swarm cells are queen cells, but not all queen cells are swarm cells.
make sense?
Yes it does.
When I looked at my hive parts the distance between the bottom of one frame and the top of another was very small (maybe 1/8- 3/16). Is that so these swarm cells will only be made at the bottom of the frames of the first deep where there is more space?