Supersedure cells or swarming?

[RustyUPNY]

First year bee keeper here.  I last did a full inspection on my hives about 10 days ago.  Today one of my two hives had about 10-15 closed queen cells that are mostly in the top 2/3 of each frame.  I installed the nucs about 4 weeks ago and added the second deeps last week.  Enterince reducers are still in.  Feeding both with 1:1 sugar water and also have pollen patties in each.  I am not the greatest and spotting queens just yet but I am seeing extremely small larva in this hive making me think there was a laying queen in there less than a week ago.  Prior to today's inspection I have been going into the hives on avg every 7 days. 

Question... Why so many closed queen cells?  I am inclined to let them do their thing as maybe there is a falling queen?  However I have read a ton of books and can't seem to find a general concensus.

[Gunny-T]

Why are your entrance reducers still in?   

[cao]

Welcome to the forum.

With that many capped queen cells, I may be wrong but, I think that they are going to swarm or have already.  When I come across that many queen cells,  I make splits.  I would pull each frame with a queen cell and put it in a nuc box.  Add a frame of nectar/honey and fill the rest of the nuc with empty frames.  With the queen cells already capped the queen will be hatched by next week and may be laying the week after.  Even if you don't want any more hives, splitting increases the odds that you will have at least one queen make it back from her mating flight.  You can always combine them later.  If you don't want to split or don't have the equipment then you can just let them go. 

>Why so many closed queen cells?

They will usually make more than one.  That way they have the possibility of swarming more than once and they have extras just in case.

>I am inclined to let them do their thing as maybe there is a falling queen?

That is a possibility.  Did you inspect them last week?  Could you have accidentally killed the queen?  If that happened, the they would have started the queen cells then and they would be capped now. 

[RustyUPNY]

I have been looking up if I need to remove them or not and can not find a general concensus on it so for the time being they are one.  Weather is warm here but the night time lows have been in the 40s until recently. (Upstate NY).  Most of what I have read was to keep them on until about week 6 or 8 or even possibly until you super the hive as wild colonies don't have huge openings either.  I haven't seen any real crowding at the entrance so I figured I would go with it.  however I remain open to suggestions.

[cao]

Why are your entrance reducers still in?   

Why not?  I left mine on all of last year and they are still on this year.  I haven't had any issues with leaving them on. 

[RustyUPNY]

Cao...
I last did a full inspection about 10 days ago at which point there were no queen cells.  That was the same time I added the second deep.  For all I know I could have crushed the queen during that inspection but I have never been able to find her in that hive. I will admit that there seemed to be less bees in that hive than on previous inspections so maybe they did swarm.  I wish I would have thought of either splitting it while I was out there or at least removing all but a few cells while I was inspecting it.  Now the soonest I can get back into that hive will likely be Saturday.  Am I correct in that if the hive was going to swarm it would have done so when they capped the queen cells?

[Oblio13]

Why are your entrance reducers still in?   

Why not?  I left mine on all of last year and they are still on this year.  I haven't had any issues with leaving them on.

If entrance reducers aren't causing traffic jams even on nice days during a flow, the hives aren't very busy.

[Oblio13]

If your hive has capped queen cells, they have likely already swarmed. On the bright side, a broodless period will reduce your mite count.

... I am inclined to let them do their thing...

Bingo. If you don't know what to do, don't do it.

[cao]

>Am I correct in that if the hive was going to swarm it would have done so when they capped the queen cells?

Yes, usually they will swarm within a few days of capping the queen cells. 

If the queen cells were recently capped there might still be some not hatched yet on saturday.

[Gunny-T]

I was thinking with enough bees to add a second deep they would surely need a bigger entrance.  Making assumptions....  It's already breaking 100 f. Here in Central Cali-fruity. 

[cao]

If entrance reducers aren't causing traffic jams even on nice days during a flow, the hives aren't very busy.

I took them off two years ago and I noticed that the majority of the bees still used the 3-4 inches where the reducer was.  The rest of the entrance was left empty.  Yes we are in the middle of our flow now and there can be a little bit of a traffic jam but the bees figure it out.  This is on my bigger hives that are 5 boxes tall right now(may need to add another box this week).  The main advantage of leaving it on is that I don't have to worry about robbing except on some of my weaker nucs.  I think it also helps keep the SHB out of weaker hives.

Gunny-T its in the mid 80's here now and they are bearding now.  A larger entrance does allow them to circulate the air a little better to cool the hive.  In your neck of the woods you may want the reducer off.  I think the bees will do fine either way.

[GSF]

Rusty, sometimes when I can't find the queen it's because my eyes are searching for the most common looking queen. Then when I find her she's either striped or almost black. Two things I try to key in on, #1 the long orange carrot she's dragging behind her. Problem there is that it isn't always orange and it isn't always fat. #2 I also look for a big black thorax on a bee. Sometimes I look from the top down getting a side view of the bees. That's when the abdomen will stick out.

Another thing, when you pull a frame out look at the frame facing you that's still in the box. At times you'll see her then. Queens will sometimes run to the dark side of the frame or on the side of the box.

[RustyUPNY]

Thank you for all of the responses everyone.  One more question...  Let's say I go into the hive this coming weekend and see a handful closed queen cells and can't find a queen for whatever reason (like my seeing eye dog can't bark the correct amount of times when he sees here). If I can find some evidence of her being there (tiny larva or eggs which I can never seem to see) should I cut out the remaining queen cells or maybe make a split with them? 

And what if I can necessaryly find evidence of a queen being there recently?  Remove all but just a few or again move a frame of queen cells and brood to make a split?

[cao]

If you can't find a queen and there are still capped queen cells, leave a couple in the hive and make splits with the rest.  If you find the queen then you can make splits with all of the remaining cells.  If you find queen cells with the side ripped open, there is a queen in there that has hatched and killed them. 

Assuming that they have already swarmed, what I would expect to find next weekend:
   Queen(s) running around
   There may be queens still in the cells that the workers aren't letting out
   No eggs or young larva(larva would be nearly capped or already capped)
   Open queen cell(s)(some hatched some ripped open)

As a rule never remove(or destroy) all the queen cells.  They are there for a reason.  But as long as you leave one or two you can remove the rest.

[RustyUPNY]

Thanks cao!