# Capped Queen Cells



## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

How long does it take for a queen to emerge from a capped queen cell? I thought that I read or heard somewhere that it could be only hours away.

Thanks!


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

A queen cell is capped for 7 1/2 days and then the virgin emerges.


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

So, if you spot one of these and put it in a nuc along with some brood and honey, you could have a laying queen in a couple of weeks?


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

Check out Michael Bush's website. He has a description of how to tell the age of a queen cell by the capping.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

MB's "Bee Math" page is the one with info on aging of queen cells:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm
near the bottom of the page.


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

Thanks, guys. I do appreciate the help!


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## rkereid (Dec 20, 2009)

Tom Fran said:


> So, if you spot one of these and put it in a nuc along with some brood and honey, you could have a laying queen in a couple of weeks?


Don't forget to add the bees along with the brood.


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

I put 2 frames in the nuc. One with the queen cells and one with brood. Do you think that's enough? It's a 5 medium frame nuc.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

I usually don't add brood. Just a cup or so of bees, a little honey and a lot of pollen. I feed sugar water for a couple of weeks til I check on the queen and go from there. The nuc does get off to a slow start but it will do well it if a flow is upcoming.


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## rkereid (Dec 20, 2009)

The brood will help the population stay up. The smaller the nuc is, the more you should watch it for issues, especially if there is no flow going on. I find that 3 or 4 frame medium nucs do best for me. 

Around here, we get a lot of robbing when the stonger hives are not busy with incoming nectar. I use robber screens on all my nucs.


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

I actually have 5 frames in the nuc, but only 2 with bees. The other frames have starter strips.


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## mbcpa (Feb 10, 2011)

Tom Fran said:


> I put 2 frames in the nuc. One with the queen cells and one with brood. Do you think that's enough? It's a 5 medium frame nuc.


Won't the bees left in the old hive still swarm?


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

I hope not!


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## honeyman46408 (Feb 14, 2003)

How many cells was there? If there were several they will probably still swarm, once they have decided to swarm its hard to stop but not impossable.


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

There were several cells, and they were in the middle of the frame - not on the bottom. 

So that would be a supersedure, right? So, if there were several cells, I should still be OK if they had a failing queen, because there are still cells left in there to replace her.

I actually need another queen for a hive that's gone queenless, so it was not just to stop a swarm.


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## honeyman46408 (Feb 14, 2003)

We make most of our splits from hives like that we take one frame with cells and fill the split (4frames) with brood and let them raise a queen, one thing to remember they can swarm more than once with a lot of cells in ahive and the cells DONT have to bee on the bottom of the frames.


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

Honeyman,

Thanks for the helpful information on how you do splits. I think I'll adopt your method. 

It has to be kind of hard to prevent swarming unless you do hive inspections every couple of days.


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

honeyman46408 said:


> We make most of our splits from hives like that we take one frame with cells and fill the split (4frames) with brood and let them raise a queen,


Question: I only put 2 frames of bees in my nucs. If I add some more frames of bees to fill up these nucs, will it be a problem if the frames were from a different hive that the original first 2 frames that I placed into the nuc.

I know when you do a combine, you have to put newspaper in there, so the bees will not fight. I have often wondered when I've read where someone was advised to "shake some more bees into hive," why that wouldn't be a problem. 

In one case you have to use newspaper, in another case - just shake them into a hive. Why is newspaper necessary in one scenario, but not in another?


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## honeyman46408 (Feb 14, 2003)

When we go into a yard we look for a hive with cells taking frames with cells (bees and all) we put them in seperate nuc boxes then finish filling the boxes with frames of brood and bees from the hives without cells and if nessary shake a few frames of bees in to make sure there are enough bees to cover the brood. You have created a state of confussin with the bees (which are mostly nurse bees) that they will bee more apt to keep the brood warm and not fight.


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

Thanks a lot for the info honeyman!


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## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

Swarm splits: the whole idea is to simulate a swarm so that the bees believe the swarm has left. Take the old queen along with a couple frames of brood/bees and a frame of honey and a frame of drawn or foundation and start a new hive in a nuc box or spare hive body. Leave ALL the swarm cells with the original hive so they can continue raising a new queen, although you could use a couple of the swarm cells for requeening or other splits, but leave plenty of them for the original hive. If you don't take the old queen out of the hive, take a guess as to what will happen; they will still swarm! When they leave (which they do 99.999% of the time, when you do it incorrectly) you need a new queen in the original split that you made incorrectly and a new queen in the original hive. If you do it correctly you still have the original queen to use as a replacement if the swarm cells aren't successful. Hope this makes sense!


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## geebob (Apr 4, 2011)

mbcpa said:


> Won't the bees left in the old hive still swarm?


Maybe... sort of depends on what their motivation to swarm was. If they have open brood, they might just start a new queen and then swarm. If there is no open brood, they won't be able to make new queen cells and they may delay. I had one of my hives swarm last year without a queen after I'd done a split... they eventually returned after a few days of feeding the sparrows.


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## geebob (Apr 4, 2011)

fish_stix said:


> Swarm splits: ...


Excellent explanation Fish Stix!

Also, if you move the old queen's hive away remember that there won't be any foragers. Two reasons this is important -- 1. she won't be likely to abscond or swarm in the near future and 2. you will have to supply honey or food and pollen.

As usual, excellent info at...
Bush Bees, swarm control


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

Wow, this stuff is way more complicated than I ever imagined. I've certainly got a lot to learn. Thanks, guys for the great info!


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## geebob (Apr 4, 2011)

Tom,

It's actually pretty simple, but there are more things to consider than you'd originally think! Fortunately, you can pretty much make this hobby as simple or as complicated as you'd like.

JeffG


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

Jeff, 

It sounds like you have to be in your hives a lot, because how else will you know if you've got swarm cells? You have to go through every frame of every box to insure your bees aren't going to swarm.


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## geebob (Apr 4, 2011)

Not really. Some of my hives aren't strong enough to worry about swarming right now. I have other hives that I know I'm going to split in the next week or two (if they have swarm cells then that is great as they are further along and will have less of a delay in build-up).

So the colonies that I'm worried about are my production colonies. We are starting to get a flow here, so I will make sure that I'm checking them regularly to keep them from being honey bound and making sure that there is plenty of room for the queen to continue to lay. Since we basically rely on June for our honey crop (and possibly May and August for bonus crops), I want my production colonies to be packed with bees by May, but still be raising brood until June.

What I'm getting at is that I have a pretty good idea of what's happening in my colonies. I don't have to check for swarm cells in my hives because I try to take steps to prevent them swarming. Have I been surprised and had colonies swarm? Uh huh... But I think I'm getting better at managing my colonies and detecting the signs of swarming behavior.


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## Tom Fran (May 18, 2010)

Very good tips here. Hive management is so important. 

But, before you can become a good "hive manager," you have to come here and get knowledge, and that is what I'm trying to do. You all have helped me immensely! 

Some people are fortunate to have mentors. All of you on this site are my mentors. , and I am grateful to you!


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