Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: GSF on March 29, 2016, 08:22:40 AM

Title: Different looking swarm cells
Post by: GSF on March 29, 2016, 08:22:40 AM
I started going through my hives yesterday checking on a couple of different things, swarm cells being one of them. I only got to go through 3 hives. One of the hives had a couple of strange looking swarm cells. My guess is they are preparing to cap it off.

On the end of the cell where it's capped is where I saw this. Each swarm cell had three 'V' shaped ends, as if made to over lap and be connected. They had the appearance somewhat like a flower petal. Each cell was charged as well. At first I was concerned that my actions may have tore them but looking closer showed otherwise. Any thoughts/comments?
Title: Re: Different looking swarm cells
Post by: Michael Bush on March 29, 2016, 10:15:21 AM
A picture would help a lot.  Assuming they are pointing down then they are likely queen cells.  If there are only three, they are likely supersedure cells.  Queen cells are often in a cluster.
Title: Re: Different looking swarm cells
Post by: GSF on March 29, 2016, 10:28:30 PM
I went back in this evening and they had already capped them, and I put them to good use. I had some bees left over from a sell (long story) so I put one queen cell in there, one in a queen castle, put the queen in another chamber of the castle, and left one cell in the original hive.