Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => Beekeeping 101 => Topic started by: Les on August 02, 2015, 07:17:16 pm
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Hi everyone.....did a full inspection of my two hives today.
The eight frame hive is doing very well. Several frames full of honey and I see the queen has been laying. My question is that I found 3 queens cells on the bottom of one frame with larva inside. On another frame, I found 5 queen cells; 4 with larva and one completely sealed. Even though the queen is busy, I think that her laying pattern is rather spotty. She does not have a good solid pattern. Could it be that since her laying pattern is spotty that the workers are trying to replace her?
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If the queen cells are on the face of the comb I would say yes, but given the conditions you describe (location and number) I am wondering about the possibility of swarming.
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Perry, really? This is a first year hive and there is still lots of room in the hive. Oh boy, would that really happen?
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to be safe pull the queen and place her in a nuc and let the bees replace her. if for some reason the hive ends up queenless you can return her to the hive with a news paper combine. Seems to be getting late for swarms but the way this year has been in most areas anything is possible even supersedure cells on the bottom of the frames.
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If the queen cells are on the face of the comb I would say yes, but given the conditions you describe (location and number) I am wondering about the possibility of swarming.
That is what I think...swarming cells
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sounds like swarm cells. First year hive and plenty of room doesn't always mean they wont swarm. What you need to look for is the room they have is in the right areas. If the brood nest is congested and the queen doesn't have a lot of room that can make for swarming
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Riverrat, there is plenty of space in the bottom deep. Plenty of empty cells and two of the outside frames have hardly been touched. Some comb built but they seem to be staying on the center frames. The top deep also has plenty of cell space.
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If the 2 or 3 frames of brood are between 2 frames of pollen, they DO NOT have room to expand. She will swarm before crossing a frame of pollen and separating the brood nest. Check for this and move the pollen frames outward if found.
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Idee, there is a smattering of pollen but the frames are not packed with pollen.
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OK. Just checking. I have moved pollen frames of pollen outward and caused a lingering hive to explode with new brood many times, so just throwing the idea out there.
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I would do what Apis said, but i would also take one of the frames with queen cells and make a nuc to get another queen (maybe), either for an emergency or replace an old queen.I don't know how many hives you have so this may not work for you? I have several hives and having a spare queen on stand buy is a good thing. Jack
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Jack, I have two hives.
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Just be careful not to take to much away from the parent colony, less than a month and we will be thinking about letting them build up for winter.