Supercedure/Emergency Cells or Drone brood?

[OzBuzz]

Hi Everybody, about four weeks ago i made a nucleus hive to save a queen that i found in a tiny log hive! i don't know how old she was although i'm assuming the hive came from a swarm. About three weeks ago she was released successfully and the hive was bringing in plenty of pollen and nectar. Yesterday i noticed at the entrance to the hive the Queen! she was dead and had been evicted... it must have only occured that day as the ants hadn't gotten to her yet. The weather here in Melbourne, Australia wasnt too bad today so i opened the hive up to have a look. a little spasmodic capped brood and some larger cells... part of me thinks they're simply drones - the other part of me isn't sure if they're supercedure/emergency Queen cells. The cells were capped so they must have been laid over a week ago which would mean the hive knew the Queen was on her way out... below are two pictures of the cells from different angles...can anyone with more experience give me their thoughts? You can also see where they clearly started to make some Queen cups but didn't get anything in them.

Right now i'm thinking they're drone cells and i have one of two options:

1) Purchase and introduce a new queen
2) Introduce a frame of eggs from my other hive so they can make an emergency queen.

If i need to do either i'm leaning toward option 1)







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[fish_stix]

Oz; those are normal drone cells. Notice also the size of the cells around them. It's completely normal for the bees to create areas of drone comb like this and for the queen to keep a supply of drones in the hive. As winter approaches they'll kick the drones out so they're not consuming winter stores.  :cheer:

[caticind]

Agreed.  Drone.

[OzBuzz]

Thanks guys, looks like I'm buying a queen!

[Kathyp]

until you get a queen, pop a frames of capped brood in there.  if you want to let them try for their own, put some eggs in. 

[FRAMEshift]

There's nothing at all wrong with an emergency queen as long as the bees have a young larva (1-3 days old) and plenty of pollen and honey to work with.  Is there a problem with the drones flying in your neighborhood?  Local mating allows for local adaptation to climate, plant species, etc.   But maybe you have a really good source of quality queens.

[JP]

How many bees are in this set up now?

I'm thinking you may want to simply combine these with another colony if there are no resources in the current hive for them to make a new queen.

The whole point of saving them was to get their genetics, if too few bees to support a colony, why bother even purchasing a queen?


...JP

[OzBuzz]

There's nothing at all wrong with an emergency queen as long as the bees have a young larva (1-3 days old) and plenty of pollen and honey to work with.  Is there a problem with the drones flying in your neighborhood?  Local mating allows for local adaptation to climate, plant species, etc.   But maybe you have a really good source of quality queens.

At the moment, although there are drones in the hives, i haven't seen any flying yet. It's still a little cold down this way...

[OzBuzz]

How many bees are in this set up now?

I'm thinking you may want to simply combine these with another colony if there are no resources in the current hive for them to make a new queen.

The whole point of saving them was to get their genetics, if too few bees to support a colony, why bother even purchasing a queen?


...JP

The nuc is still quite populous - they have drawn out two frames of foundation that i put in there and completely filled two frames with capped brood and pollen - they're currently backfilling some of the frames with nectar. In regard overall population there's probably 2 1/2 frames covered with bees. The only other reason i could think to go to the hassle of getting a Queen is to add another hive to my collection... if they were weak and didnt have enough resources it would be a no brainer but i figure i might as well give it a shot