# Queen Swarm cells in the Fall



## Slow Drone (Apr 19, 2014)

Sounds more typical of a supercedure not swarming. Leave them alone you should be alright I live a little more north than you and I still have drones. If you mean by hurt that her wings are tattered or the bees are tugging on her then yes it's a supercedure. I wouldn't worry about the extra queen cells the bees will remedy that.


----------



## bobbybee (Sep 8, 2014)

cvonins said:


> I have a hive that has been struggling a bit with the amount of honey stores they had and with the amount of brood. About 2 weeks ago, I opened it up and found the queen but she seemed hurt. Limping around and looked like the worker bees were picking on her. I found 2 capped queen cells that same day and in my haste, I cut them out. I had some fondant and proceeded to feed them some of it as their food stores seemed low. Today, I was in the hive again and found the queen again, only it is a different queen. She seemed strong and saw lots of eggs and brood. Great news except, I also found 2 swarm queen cells. I am wondering if by feeding them some fondant I have them thinking that this is spring time and they are looking to now swarm. I really don't want them to swarm and splitting them seems like a bad idea as I am thinking the new queen won't be able to mate this late in the year. The queen cells seem pretty new as one wasn't capped yet and the other was capped but probably not much older than the non-capped one. Any advice on what I should do?



You are probably ok. Just count the days per Michael Bush's bee math for when you should have a laying queen. Then inspect to make sure that you do. If you don't get one, be prepared to combine. You will probably get a great fall queen out of the deal.


----------



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

At this late it is probably a gamble to get a mated queen.
At least you can try it. I have one already mated and laying 3 days ago.
The 3 that follow might not make it since they are still in the cap cells.
I'm willing to gamble with the onset of the cold Autumn winds. Temp. has been
dropping lower severely. Hope that there are still drones out there in 2 more weeks or so.
What a gamble! Would rather get a mated queen if you can.


----------



## cvonins (Sep 29, 2016)

Thanks for the advice. I will wait and see what happens. Hopefully they will take care of it.


----------

