just-in-case supersedure cells?

madscientist · July 23, 2008, 01:56:04 PM

Was checking a hive last night which was healthy in all respects. Saw the queen. Saw lots of worms. Saw lots of capped brood in nice dense patterns. Also saw two supersedure cells. I call them that because they were in the middle of the combs, not on the peripheries and there were only two in the entire hive, not scads of them. My textbooks indicate that these are supersedure cells, but my hive/queen does not fit any of the descriptions of a colony needing to supersede. The queen was just purchased this year so she's not old.
Could these really be swarm cells and not supersedure cells? The hive is very populous (and I ended up adding another deep last night).

Robo · July 23, 2008, 02:26:31 PM

Did that have eggs or larvae in them? If not, they are probably just queen cups, which is normal.

madscientist · July 23, 2008, 03:23:38 PM

Nothing was in them and they were made out of the older wax, not fresh wax.

So now I'm curious, what's the puprose of a queen cup if it's not for queen production?

annette · July 24, 2008, 12:29:50 AM

They make queen cups very often, just to have in an emergency. Maybe it is like a drill??? They also tear them down.

Michael Bush · July 24, 2008, 09:18:31 PM

If they have no larvae in them I wouldn't consider that a queen cell, just a cup. Any queen might be superseded. According to Nancy Ostiguy at a KHPA meeting, she believes that the average queen gets superseded three times a year because of all the contaminates in the wax.

golddust-twins · July 25, 2008, 08:11:03 PM

>According to Nancy Ostiguy at a KHPA meeting, she believes that the average queen gets superseded three times a year because of all the contaminates in the wax.

Thanks Michael,
I was wondering how often queens get superseded on the average.

Corinne

Robo · July 26, 2008, 09:48:31 AM

I guess my queens aren't average then. I don't think I've ever had more than 2 times in one year and that is even rare. Anybody else with marked queens seeing anything close to this?

I find it hard to believe. With some hives not superceding at all, to get an average of 3 times, you need a bunch of hives doing 5 or more a year. With that amount of superceding how can they survive.

Michael Bush · July 26, 2008, 02:35:00 PM

>I guess my queens aren't average then. I don't think I've ever had more than 2 times in one year and that is even rare. Anybody else with marked queens seeing anything close to this?

I don't see that much either, but how much do you use chemicals in your hives?

Robo · July 26, 2008, 03:53:04 PM

Your right, I haven't used Apistan since the early 90s, for the last 5-6 years I've only using oxalic acid on a as need bases.

I still have a hard time with the numbers though. To get an average of 3 means a fair portion do it more than 3. How does a hive survive with that much brooding downtime. Just one or two timed right can cause them to miss the flow and become weak. The higher the number gets, the more likely it becomes.