Looking through one of my hives today and found a very big queen cell in the center of a frame in the bottom deep hive body. It was not anywhere near the bottom of the frame and was the only queen cell I found. The hive has drawn lots of drone comb (foundationless) and as a result I have lots of drones in the hive as well. The queen is doing well, has a decent laying pattern, lots of brood. And there is also plenty of room in the double deep. I'm guessing this means that this is a healthy hive that is not planning to swarm, but working to supersede the queen. Thoughts?
could be the gals are seeing too much drone brood and decided to change queens.
But, the workers build the drone cells, not the queen's fault, no?
Quote from: The Bix on May 07, 2011, 08:52:31 PM
But, the workers build the drone cells, not the queen's fault, no?
True the workers build the combs, the queen lays the appropriate egg in each type of cell. But when a queen doesn't lay enough eggs, lays too many drone to worker egg ratio, or isn't producing sufficient phenomones to satisfy the workers will replace the queen.
Prior to a reproductive swarm the drone to worker ration might be as high as 40% but after that it is maintained at about 20% for the remainder of the season, even if the hive swarms again.
When the bees don't want more drones they fill the drone cells with nectar to keep the queen from laying in them.
The colony that decides their queen is not up to the task at hand starts supersedure promptly. After starting supersedure cells the old queen is expendable.
Based upon what I've described, should I be concerned about a swarm or is this only supersedure? I realize that a supersedure and swarming are not mutually exclusive. I'm just concerned about my neighbors freaking out because of a swarm.
The circumstances appear to be a supersedure.