Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: asprince on June 04, 2012, 08:14:41 am

Title: Queen cell question?
Post by: asprince on June 04, 2012, 08:14:41 am

Do the bees build a queen cell around an egg or do they move the egg to the queen cup/cell?



Steve

Title: Re: Queen cell question?
Post by: rbinhood on June 04, 2012, 08:32:21 am

Cell around the egg.

Title: Re: Queen cell question?
Post by: FRAMEshift on June 04, 2012, 08:47:38 am

Depends on whether it's an emergency cell or a swarm/supercedure cell.   If the bees know in advance that they want to prepare to make a queen, they will start a queen cup and the queen will then lay an egg inside it.  The cup can then be expanded into a queen cell.  Queen cups/cells are often built just-in-case and may be torn down again before being capped.

In the case of an emergency cell, when the need for a new queen is not recognized by the bees while there is still a laying queen available, they have to refashion a worker cell into a queen cell after the egg has been laid.  In that case they prefer a young larva in a newly drawn cell which has soft, pliable wax that is easily reworked into a queen cell.

The workers don't move eggs around from one cell to another.

Title: Re: Queen cell question?
Post by: asprince on June 04, 2012, 08:56:14 pm

Thanks for the information. It was just a question that crossed my mind.


Steve

Title: Re: Queen cell question?
Post by: iddee on June 04, 2012, 10:36:36 pm

Except for swarm cells, they don't use eggs. They start with larva.
Like frame says, they don't move them.