Hi Awesome Beekeepers
I had I question about queen cells capped before six days on a split Hive, I was inspecting a split after six days saw Queen cells being capped, my understanding is the bees started raising them off worker larva, end up removing them and adding another frame of brood and young larva frame into it it.
Is this right approach, because that would be under rated queen
Any advise would be appreciated
Thanks
Cells are capped on day 9 from egg. The egg hatches on day 3.5
Assuming eggs that were about to hatch or had just hatched at the time of the split, seeing cells being capped at 6 days after split is actually the perfect scenario, the best cells and queens are in those.
Tauseef,
Welcome to Beemaster.
Bees do not move larvae around. They will float a larvae, with Royal jelly, in a worker cell out to the edge so that they can build the cell vertically.
As THP said, the egg hatches at about day 3.5 and is capped at about day 9, depending on hive temperature.
The larvae is fed royal jelly for the next 3 days. That is day 6.5, approximately.
The bees then start feeding workers pollen bread. As long as the workers have not started feeding the larvae pollen bread, it is a good viable queen.
Jim Altmiller