Queen cups

[wxton]

  I opened up one and was checking out the brood pattern I noticed numerous queen cups in this one particular hive.  There was probably 10-15 queen cups (no capped queen cells).  this is a strong hive but they have plenty of room left in the honey super and there is plenty of capped brood, larva and eggs to show me that they are not queenless.  Is it common to find numerous queen cups in a hive? or should I consider splitting this hive soon?   

[Highlandsfreedom]

Is a queen cup a open cell at the bottom of a frame that is taller than the rest of the brood and is kinda like a bowel thats not closed yet?? If so I have 3 of them on the bottom of one of my frames from a swarm that I hived about a month ago...   They havent even filled up all 20 frames in the hive??

[homer]

  I opened up one and was checking out the brood pattern I noticed numerous queen cups in this one particular hive.  There was probably 10-15 queen cups (no capped queen cells).  this is a strong hive but they have plenty of room left in the honey super and there is plenty of capped brood, larva and eggs to show me that they are not queenless.  Is it common to find numerous queen cups in a hive? or should I consider splitting this hive soon?   

It is completely normal for bees to build "practice" queen cups.  I don't know if it's just in case, or if they just want to stay tuned up on their skills.  I see them in my hives quite regularly.  Nothing to worry about.

[Bee Happy]

It is completely normal for bees to build "practice" queen cups.  I don't know if it's just in case, or if they just want to stay tuned up on their skills.  I see them in my hives quite regularly.  Nothing to worry about.

...it's a message to the queen: "lower the taxes or we're outta here".   :-P

[TwT]

hive's do make false cell cups a good bit, the thing is to look inside the cells and make sure there is no royal jelly and larva, if they have larva in the cells they maybe getting ready to swarm or supercede the queen, if you are still seeing eggs and larva then supercedure is probably not it. this is when it is time to find the queen and take the frame she is own and a couple more frames with bee's that dont have the cells on them and start a nuc or new hive. if you have a few nuc's around start a few others with a cell frame with bee's and another frame of bee's for each nuc.

[Highlandsfreedom]

I am just using a regular city lot (back yard) if they are trying to swarm could I put the nuc on the other side of the yard and it be ok?