Larvae and eggs - also queencups - why?

[tomiferris]

I live in Northern CA - Sonoma County.  I inspected one of my hives about a week ago and noticed capped brood, open larvae, and eggs.  But I also noticed an unopened queen cup on the bottom of one of the frames I looked at (definitely a queen cup and not drone). The brood area is 4 mediums - this hive has been very strong in the last couple of years - I only inspected the top box of the brood area.  When I spotted the queen cup, I didn't want to chance ruining any others.  My question - why would they be raising a new queen when the old one seems to be doing her job? Isn't it late in the year to be doing that?

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

[Michael Bush]

Assuming, by "cup" you mean there is no larvae in it, then it means absolutely nothing.

[tomiferris]

Sorry, actually what I meant is a capped queen cell. 

[Michael Bush]

Well, a capped queen cell is a horse of a different color...

The thing to try to narrow down is if they are swarming or superseding.  I would put that in the context of whether the hive is growing or shrinking and how many cells they made.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm#swarmcellsonbottom

[Brian D. Bray]

Supercedure is usually done with less than 6 queen cells and often only one or two.  Also of note is that if you find capped queen cells that indicate a supercedure is underway the chances that the queen has already been offed runs about 80%.  I've had hives off the queen as soon as there were dedicated queen cells, open, newly hatched larva.

Removing a supercedure cell is a recipe for disaster, or at least a queenless hive.

[10framer]

i have a hive that kept a viable queen cell or two around all season.  i think these bees are russian hybrids.  they finally succeeded in replacing the queen back in late july.