Queen Cells

Short clip taken from a video made for our grandson's class of swarm and supercedure queen cells on a frame.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• insect
• queen
• cells
• supercedure
• swarm
• honeybees
• bees

[slacker361]

when you get queen cells like that , do you have to worry about the hive swarming?

[acbees]

Yes, definitely. In this case the cells that could be cut from the comb were transferred into small hives called nucs (short for nucleus colony). The queen was removed with a couple of frames of bees and put into another nuc. She may or may not be worth saving. A couple of cells were left in the original colony to hatch. It hurts the size of the original hive, but gives you extra queens and keeps all of the bees in the hives instead of them swarming away to start a colony somewhere else.

[flyingslanted]

Good quick informative picture of queen cells. This helped me identify what's in my hive since this is my first year beekeeping. I'm told the bees shouldn't swarm first year so was surprised to see one. I have my queen and lots of brood so not sure what is going on in the beehive.

[acbees]

Glad to hear they helped you. Not unusual for first year packages or nucs to swarm. Could be they need more room, but they do what they want and they know what they're doing. It sometimes doesn't make sense to us. Wish you the best with your new bees. I know you will enjoy them.

Arvin

[angelhope2009]

No, generally each of a beekeeper's hives are already full to begin with, where would he put the bees then?!!! I've been beekeeping for over 30 years and I think Bib's idea of letting swarm naturally is the best I've heard so far for preserving their poulation, of course if you've got room in other hives go for it, but that's pretty obvious to begin with anyway! A beekeeper's only got so many hives at their disposal.

[BibFortuna4President]

I think it's dumb how beekeepers kill the queen cells.

Considering the current terrible state that bees are in, the bee farmers should enable a percentage of their hives to swarm naturally, otherwise they are effectively contributing to the problem by forcibly preventing the bee population to grow

[bogercs]

Even the queen and her children has bee cellulite.

[Mesmerelda]

@jontebiogas10 In other words, they're minding their own beeswax. =P

[Mesmerelda]

@rimsa80 nope, they're the European Honeybees (Apis Mellifera)

[Tom6093]

I always thought that when the first queen hatches, it kills off the other unhatched queens.

[rimsa80]

those are not killerbees :)

[jontebiogas10]

Bees arent that evil unless you bother them for a longer time. they probobly doesnt even knows theír frame has been picked up...

[nousernameideasleft]

happen?! I am not trying to be offensive or anything, I love my bees, I just thought that it would be good to point out that swarming off and losing half a colony is not the ONLY method for helping the bees. If you really want to help them out, get the word out and tell people not to go exterminating 20,000 bees on a tree branch because they are scared of their "uninvited" guests. At least letting bees swarm naturally could help this quasi-crisis a bit, and I'm just saying splitting can help too

[nousernameideasleft]

Having extra room or hives was assumed in my statement! Of course, I am not trying to put anyone down when I say splitting hives is a good thing. And yes, letting them swarm would help the population get a step up. The problem comes when urbanization is factored in and less respect is given from the common man to bees, thereby exterminating or by other methods eliminating the bee population. If I hired 20 employees to go and split 100 hives but never bought any supplies, what do you think would