Uncapped Queen Cells

[mherndon]

I live 125 miles away from my hive and did a 50/50 split Friday the 17th.   I was unable to find my marked queen.  I could not find any newly laid eggs, but there was some young larvae at different stages of development.  Since I am only able to get to the hives every couple of weeks, I went ahead a did a 50/50 split.  This was advice given by another beekeeper and friend.  He said to make sure I had queen cells on both hives just in case the old queen had swarmed.  I know there was one capped queen cell, but the others were uncapped with royal jelly.  I couldn't see an egg in these, but the royal jelly was white and seemed to have as much as a 1/2 or more of a thimble of royal jelly.  Will the open cells be adequate for a queen to be made after doing the split?  The hives were still busting with bees.  If they had already swarmed, I did not notice a decline in population.  I just hope the hive with the open queen cells had enough nurse bees to finish the process.  Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Mark

[JP]

Its only been a few days, give them more time, say a week and check them again.

The cups with royal jelly should be drawn out then, possibly all will be capped as well.

Be careful you don't bump any queen cells as you are removing or putting those frames back in place, they could get injured and not form properly.

Best of luck.


...JP

[mherndon]

Thanks JP.

Mark

[mherndon]

My bee numbers were very high.  I couldn't tell if they had swarmed or not.  I guess the queen could have got past me, I had her marked and haven't missed her in three inspections.  I usually found her on frames with eggs, but didn't have any eggs on this visit.  I think she either swarmed or was getting ready to.

Mark

[Brian D. Bray]

My bee numbers were very high.  I couldn't tell if they had swarmed or not.  I guess the queen could have got past me, I had her marked and haven't missed her in three inspections.  I usually found her on frames with eggs, but didn't have any eggs on this visit.  I think she either swarmed or was getting ready to.

Mark

Bees have been known to swarm as soon as the 1st queen cell is capped.  That may have happened to you.  That is why removing queen cells is such a bone headed idea.  A hive can swarm during the period from the capping of 1st queen cell until the hatching of the 1st queen cell.  Also bees will usually swarm after a large hatch of new bees so that the absence of the queen and swarm is not noticable by population but by lack of capped brood cells.

If the weather is adverse the swarm may remain in the hive for a day or 2 after the virgin queen has hatched.  They will also cluster underneath the parent hive during adverse weather.  So large cluster of bee beneath the hive, during swarm season, should be treated as a swarm until proven otherwise.