Swarm Cells

GSF · July 09, 2014, 07:36:47 PM

Four of my hives have swarm cells in them. One of them is queenless no eggs or brood, it has about 6 peanuts in it. I'm cool with it. The other 3 and probably more of the 14 have swarm cell peanuts in them. They also have a queen and larva at all stages. I'm afraid to scrap them and I'm afraid not to. One of them is a split from 6 Jun 14 that only has 4 of the 8 frames in deep drawn out (foundation). I don't have the resources to do splits either.

I don't know if I'll just let nature take its course or not. If yall are down south you may want to check things out in your hives. I was in these hives about two weeks ago and all was fine.

BeeMaster2 · July 09, 2014, 08:33:59 PM

Are they swarm cells or are they emergency cells o supercedure cells. Do you have a good flow on?
I'm surprised they are swarming. I have not seen any drones around here for a while.
Jim

GSF · July 09, 2014, 09:43:32 PM

Tons of drones here. However, I am seeing more and more drone brood getting the early out. There is something going on around here. My bees are busy in and out all day. It could be the cotton and soybeans not far from here. I added another super to about three or four hives. I've been thinking that the stores they had were sugar water but I haven't fed sugar water to some of these since the flow started.

One I added a super because about five frames were capped brood and everything was about packed out - no swarm cell in that one.

"modified" I failed to mention that these were capped swarm cells. Hanging down like a peanut.

iddee · July 09, 2014, 10:25:05 PM

A hive cannot have VIABLE queen cells if it has no other brood. The queen emerges in 16 days. The workers in 21. If the queen cells were viable, there would still be worker brood in the hive.

rookie2531 · July 10, 2014, 05:02:41 AM

I am confused, I thought a queen cell was from a egg that was already laid and not a cell waiting to be laid in?

BeeMaster2 · July 10, 2014, 06:46:57 PM

G,
You may bee seeing old queen cells that the queens were killed by another q stinging they through their cells and left there.
Rookie,
Swarm cells are cells that the bees made, pointing down, that the queen will lay eggs in when the bees decide to go into the swarm mode. Most hives have queen cups that the bees make but remain empty.
Jim

GSF · July 10, 2014, 10:43:44 PM

Thanks Iddee, that one got by me. Time to do some swapping.

Thanks to you also Sawdstmakr, that would explain a queen cell I saw in another a while back. Checked it out, no q, but a capped cell. Later I saw eggs and the same capped q cell. However, I do have a question. What about the housekeepers? Shouldn't they have picked up on a corpse in the living room?