Hello All
Here in New England, we hived a colony from Georgia on Easter weekend. Today we went in to find no queen in evidence, but, about eight queen cups/ supercedure cells, some closed, some not. There is one or two frames with brood about the size of a palm of your hand. The queen cups/supercedure are completely alone on the frames- not near anything else, and without other brood. They are on three or four frames. What does this mean? My remedy: cut them all off, make sure there is not a queen in the hive, and introduce a new queen. Still, the whole thing seems odd to me. Is it? Or am I just delirious from the sudden nice weather?
Thanks in advance.
Oh, and if someone can explain it to me, I can post a picture of this hive.
Somebody had to lay the eggs that became the queen cells.
If you see no other signs of brood you can requeen. don't worry about the queen cells the introduced queen will kill them off.
Sincerely,
Brendhan
Yes indeed Brendhan, someone laid those eggs! :-D
Still, what happened here? Why are those super-cells far away from the brood? Is that normal? And, what likely happened to the queen? Did the bees decide they did not like her, and usurp power? Is regicide afoot? Or is there another explanation?
Bee man; When the bees supercede the queen let them do it do not interfere with them they know more about whats going on within the hive than we do. There must have been something wrong with the original queen for them to supercede her. Don't cut out supercedure queen cells. They will be ok. Let them raise one. Charlie
I wouldn't put a new Queen in there unless I made sure there was not a queen and they weren't in the middle of making one.If you re-queen make sure there is no queen and no queen cells. my thoughts
kirk-o
If you research the forum you'll find that a lot of beekeepers reported a high supercedure rate last year. It was an ongoing topic. I believe that a lot of queens are being raised in hives that are loaded with chemicals in the wax. The chemicals adversely affect the queen and the bees replace her asap.
The other reason of some other defect.
When It comes to superceding queens that come with the package I would just let them do it. There's nothing to say that buying another queen (especially from the same producer) won't result in the same problem.