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  • From: Catherine Adamson <cadamson AT alumni.unc.edu>
  • To: Jeff Bollinger <jeff01 AT email.unc.edu>, ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Queen Cells
  • Date: Mon, 16 May 2011 10:31:41 -0400

Hi Jeff,

It's not unheard of for a package producer to accidentally scoop up a just-mated queen in the package.  Precisely because she hasn't gotten big yet, she is hard to spot.  The package bees travel with that queen, and already "know" her, and so they immediately dispose of the introduced queen in favor of the one they already had.  It's no problem for the beekeeper, except for the waste of a marked queen. 

If you don't open the queen cage immediately, sometimes you can tell that the package already has a queen (no sign of releasing the caged queen, eggs laid before the queen is released) and can move the caged queen to another split, turning an excess queen into a "free bonus" queen.

-Catherine

On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 10:20 AM, Jeff Bollinger <jeff01 AT email.unc.edu> wrote:

Interestingly enough, I installed two packages with marked queens about
9 days ago.  I checked on them yesterday and one hive kept the marked
queen although the other made an entirely new queen!  She seems smaller
than the missing marked queen I paid $1 extra for (guess because she's
younger/smaller ovaries) but I did verify she was laying eggs.

The hive with the younger queen has much fewer eggs than the other hive,
but she is still laying in a nice pattern.  I did NOT find any
supercedure cells, nor queen cups which was a mystery to me.  I can't
figure out how a new queen was cultivated, had a mating flight, and
started laying eggs all within one week!

Jeff


On 5/12/11 2:16 PM, Randall Austin wrote:
>   Catherine,
>
> For what it's worth, you have done what I would do. Your description
> does sound like it is probably supercedure rather than swarming, based
> on the fact that the cell is in the center of the frame rather than the
> bottom and that there is only one cell (usually bees create lots of
> swarm cells, but only a few supercedure cells).
>
> It isn't unusual for a new package of bees to want to replace the queen
> with "one of their own". That's a bit silly because the new queen will
> be the daughter of the old one, but who knows what goes through the mind
> of a bee? I would leave it alone and see what happens. You may very well
> end up with a well-fed, well-mated new queen that may be better than the
> mass-produced, early-season queen you started with.
>
> Let us know how it goes!
>
> Randall Austin
>
> On 5/12/2011 12:20 PM, catherinelguerrero AT gmail.com wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am a beginner bee keeper, and I have two hives that I installed 3 lbs packages in on April 18th. In my inspection yesterday I found a single capped queen cell in one of the hives. It is toward the center of the frame.
>>
>> It is actually the more quickly growing of my two hives, although they still have a lot of room to expand. I am not sure what to do with it. There are eggs, uncapped brood and capped brood present. The laying pattern looks okay, although I am comparing it online pictures. My last inspection was 10 days ago, but I don't know exactly how old the cell is.
>>
>>> From what I read it looks like a supercedure process, but I know those rules aren't hard and fast. I left it there because I figure they know better than I do, but I would like be ready to try something if it is swarm preparation. I was hoping someone might have some advice for me.
>>
>> Thanks for any thoughts you might have.
>>
>> Catherine Guerrero
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