QUEEN CELLS

[COLVIN]

last week i did a split on a queenless hive that was rasing queen cells. some on the bottom of frame and some on the center of frames. i cut the bottom queen cells and left the ones in the center of frames and made new hive with these. these cells where allready capped, about 3-4 of them. this week end i look in to it and all the queen cells have been opened or tore up. what does this mean? has a queen hatched and destroyed the other cells?

colvin

[Scadsobees]

>>has a queen hatched and destroyed the other cells?

Most likely, the first one out will try to sting the rest, or if there is more than 2 virgins hatched, they will fight to the death.

Check back in about 1 or 2 weeks for eggs.

[Brian D. Bray]

Once the emerges she will often kill of the queens in the remaining cells by stinging them through the cell wall.  the worker bees then remove the dead queens and tear down the queen cells.
It can take up to 10 days before a queen leaves the hive on mating flights then another week or two before she actually starts laying.  I prefer to use a 3 week timeline when anticipating when a new queen will come on line.

[BEE C]

Brian is right, it can take three weeks before she starts to lay.  I didn't wait for the queen to start laying in one hive and added a queen cell someone had given me, when I found it she was dead in the cell and lol there were eggs laid nicely in other frames.  I was worried about the hive being queenless for winter and couldn't wait...