T McD's Bees - QUEEN CELLS! time to do a reversal

Looks like this is queen cell season for me with my wintered hive. I had to get rid of a few queen cells (which is close and gross) so my hive doesn't think of swarming. The queen is running our of room in the top box so I reversed the two boxes so she is now on the bottom and can work up to there the other brood has hatched. Queens so not like to travel downward, only up so this is why a person had to keep reversing the hive boxes when she is a prolific queen. I'm sure I'll have to do it a few more times before the honey flow season.

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Education

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• T McD's bees
• Queen cells reversal
• T McD's queen cells

[TerryMcBelle]

It is pretty inevitable that a few bees get in the way. When a bee does get squashed the smell of it alarms the guard bees that something is not right and they start to protect their hive colony. They can be pretty aggressive especially just after the nectar flow. The smoke masks this smell so the guard bees don't get a drift of the smell of the dead bee/bees to make it easier for the beekeeper to work with the bees. There are a few other advantages to the smoke.

[TerryMcBelle]

Thank you for explanation it makes a lot of sense.

I hope your bees are doing well. I have four hives that I've been wintering here in MN, one of them has died during one of the sub zero snaps and the other three are still buzzing and waiting for spring.

[TerryMcBelle]

Thanks and yes I think you're right drone cells are usually in clusters.

[TommyProCam]

How do you prevent squishing a bee when you're working? Or is that just inevitable? And if a bee does get squished, don't other bees notice and send out some kind of warning pheromones that could be trouble for you? Or does the smoke prevent that from happening?

[KCL1]

Capped queen cells with always point down, on occasion the queen cells will be clusted together but with the cell pointing down. Nice video.

[randjhoneybees]

Yes... Those were drone cells. The are laid in spots other then the foundation. The foundation cells are sized to small for drones, so they pick a spot where the comb can be drawn out bigger then in the pre sized smaller foundation.

If i have a good gentle hive, i leave the drone cells alone... (within reason) i want those drones to help poulate my area for when i make queens. If i have a hot hive or mean box, i will kill all the drone cells that i can, till the hive has been requeened .

[magprob]

I think they were Drag Queens!

[dancingbeeapiary]

I'm quite sure the cells you scraped off were drone cells not queen cells. Queen cells always point downwards, like the un-capped ones at the start of the video.