Looked at my new packages this week, looking good with good brood pattern and larvae, eggs are present. Noted in one hive, a single, acorn shaped empty cup on the lower 1/3 of one frame. What is it? The queen was seen and is laying, the hive looks healthy.
Thanks,
Rob
may be a queen cell
I had that thought, but it is empty. No change it it over the last 3 days.
Rob
Could be a queen cup. I read that they build them sometimes and then tear them down. Keep an eye on it.
This caught my attention because I noticed something similar on the inner face of Frame #1 in one of my hives today (2 week old package); Near the bottom edge there are 2 protusions, more like cones rather than acorns though and otherwise very little comb on the foundation. I was assuming it was brace comb though I've never seen it in this location before.
Many hives (especially new and in the Spring) get superstitious (human term) about the future of the queen for that given season - having supercedure cells around or swarm cells BOTH can be found in foresight of possible "changes" in the hive.
You''ll see these PEANUT SHAPED cells come and go all throughout the whole season in any hive - often the don't mean anything except a security blanket or sucking a thumb in the hive - it is like having a nest-egg in the bank.
Even when you see larva in these, that is no sign of pending changes, it is though a sign that the hive assumes changes may be pending - I acquaint it to my buying a motorhome so I can haul all my clothes around with me rather than packing each time for a trip: just cause I have 32 pair of socks don't mean I'll wear them all.
Just as human females produce and expel many eggs in her life-time, a hive goes through cycles where both real and unnecessary queen cells, eggs and yes... even redecorating. Sometime, I think a stop-frame animation of an entire life of a hive would be revealing - imagine the color changes of cells as they are use for every hive purpose, etc..
So, don't always worry that you are either missing a queen, have a poor layer, one with a bad pheromone or a swarm pending - queen cell production is common and often just reflects a whim of the hives conscious when it is constructed.
Thanks for your info John. I had the feeling that it was a benign change but it just looked weird sitting on the frame and not changing shape or being used. Kinda like a spare tire!!
Rob
I don't know that I would call this peanut or acorn shaped, but I found this during the second inspection of my hive today:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29258782@N00/147884149/ (If you scroll around the photos note that some my wife's captions are not necessarily accurate, and please pay no attention to the fat beekeeper she is married to. :) )
This is my first hive. I started from a 4 frame nuc on 04/29. It has been cold and rainy much of the time since then, with lows in the 40's a few nights ago. As a result I have not been able to check it for about 10 days. The cell above was on one of the original nuc frames. Including the nuc frames, the deep brood box frames are around 70% drawn - there is at least some wax on 9 of the 10 frames. There is plenty of capped and uncapped brood and some capped drones. There is some capped honey, some pollen, and and lots of nectar. I did not see the queen, and I still have trouble seeing eggs, (the sun was blocked by trees during my inspection,) but here is uncapped brood as evidence that she is there: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29258782@N00/147884328/
Even though they still have some room I went ahead and put a super on, although I doubt that they will use it for few days until the weather breaks. Even then I do not expect to harvest more than a few frames this year unless there is a heavy flow.
Considering the cold and rain, the hive looks like it is doing fine overall, to my uneducated eyes at least. But I am glad I read this thread before I saw the (queen?) cell in the first photo. :) There is no sign of disease as far as I can tell. I am getting a kick of seeing the yellow-with-black-band workers slowly replaced with black-with-yellow-band workers from the Italian queen over the last several days.