# Have my first Queen Cells - Now what? ***Pictures***



## Tomson (Feb 9, 2015)

Hi I have a swarm that was queenless, they balled her and cooked her in front of me. See that thread. So over the past few weeks I have been giving them frames with eggs, and finally they took to the eggs the second week. I now have at least 3 queen cells. They just capped the one on the right overnight. I looked yesterday. So if that gives me a time line.

Gulp, now what? There are lots of drones flying so I should get her mated, coming back home, fingers crossed. 

What should I do with the other cells? 
How long before they hatch? Some are going to hatch later than another as they are just getting capped today or tomorrow. 
Should I try a 5 frame NUC split with a few frames of brood and honey with the others? I would like too 
When Can I pull them off if I do?
What is the best time to wait before cutting them off? I will leave one for the swarm. Or should I leave more that one?

Sorry to dump all this on the forum, I will start reading up, but I think that there may be things I should do now?

Tom


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## tsmullins (Feb 17, 2011)

Tomson said:


> Gulp, now what? There are lots of drones flying so I should get her mated, coming back home, fingers crossed.
> 
> What should I do with the other cells?
> How long before they hatch? Some are going to hatch later than another as they are just getting capped today or tomorrow.
> ...


They cap the cell at day eight. So, she should emerge in eight days or so. You will probably not see eggs for over three weeks. Mr. Bush sums it up very nicely here: http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm


If it were me, I would leave the other cells alone. You could start a nuc with a cell. Then again, you could split you other colony/colonies and let them raise their own queen. If they were swarm cells, then I would say yes, grab a few and start some new colonies. But not with emergency queens. 

Once my Uncle's hive was queenless. I took a non swarm cell (probably an emergency - can't remember now) from one of my colonies. The cell I put in his hive took and made a strong colony. The cell I left in mine was a dud. Ended up shaking the hive out.


HTH,
Shane


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## Tomson (Feb 9, 2015)

What is the difference with an emergency Cell vs a swarm cell? Is the queen any different?


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## tsmullins (Feb 17, 2011)

Tomson said:


> What is the difference with an emergency Cell vs a swarm cell? Is the queen any different?


Swarm cells are produced by booming colonies under very favorable conditions. Emergency cells not so much. Not saying you can't get a good queen from an emergency cell.

Shane


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Swarm cells are usually created when there is good nectar and pollen flow going on, with good stores in the hive, with very good populations per hive size, and an over abundance of young nurse bees. So, the swarm cells are created with the bees planning for the cells and under the best of conditions, resulting in large well fed virgins.

Emergency cells are just that, created when a queen goes missing or injured unexpectedly. Those cells may or may not be as good as swarm cells, depending on conditions at the time of queen loss.


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## Tomson (Feb 9, 2015)

RayMarler said:


> Swarm cells are usually created when there is good nectar and pollen flow going on, with good stores in the hive, with very good populations per hive size, and an over abundance of young nurse bees. So, the swarm cells are created with the bees planning for the cells and under the best of conditions, resulting in large well fed virgins.
> 
> Emergency cells are just that, created when a queen goes missing or injured unexpectedly. Those cells may or may not be as good as swarm cells, depending on conditions at the time of queen loss.


But I have no queen. So I wanted to get one doing something. I will say that there we are in a major flow now. We are 10 acres of fruit and avocado trees all blooming, plus we border about 1000 acres of national forest that has wildflower covering everything. 

So there should be plenty of food. My other hives are bringing in so much honey I am worried about backfilling and have already added supers on two hives.


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## BeeAttitudes (Dec 6, 2014)

I'll give you my non-experienced take after doing quite a bit of reading.

Swarm cells are typically built along the bottom of the frame and hang very close to vertical. Being vertical (cell pointed downward) is a good thing as it ensures the queen larvae inside has constant access to royal jelly so she is fed consistently and fully develops.

Emergency cells are typically built on the side of the comb. With cells immediately below, the queen cell has to be built out horizontally some distance before turning downward and often the cell isn't vertical. So I've read the larvae has to be "floated out" to the vertical portion of the cell and may not have constant access to royal jelly. If deprived of royal jelly for any significant time period during development, the queen may not develop fully (smaller abdomen for example) and the queen may not be as productive as she could have been.

So consistent access to a good supply of royal jelly seems to be the key.......and a vertical cell seems to provide this better then a cell that is built out horizontally then turns downward. I would love for experienced queen raisers to comment on this.

Which brings up another point to consider. Mel D. (wish I could spell his last name) promotes OTS (On the Spot) queen rearing. His queens are raised on the side of frames similar to emergency cells. However, he smashes the bottom third of the cell with hive tool (or similar) which also smashes the cells immediately below those cells. Now the cell can be drawn out near vertical. Mel claims using this procedure high quality queens are raised (assuming the queens are started in a robust cell builder). Some experienced folks here have stated that this works great. If true, it appears that using the OTS method queens don't need to be "floated out" and have consistent access to royal jelly. If true, it sure is a quick and easy method to ensure a quality queen is raised.

Thoughts?


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Tomson said:


> But I have no queen. So I wanted to get one doing something.


I did not mean to sound as if you did something wrong, I think you did just fine. I was just answering your earlier question about the difference between swarm cells and emergency cells.


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## Tomson (Feb 9, 2015)

BeeAttitudes said:


> I'll give you my non-experienced take after doing quite a bit of reading.
> 
> Swarm cells are typically built along the bottom of the frame and hang very close to vertical. Being vertical (cell pointed downward) is a good thing as it ensures the queen larvae inside has constant access to royal jelly so she is fed consistently and fully develops.
> 
> ...


These look like they are on the bottom to me? Not sure if you can tell from the picture but that is the bottom of a medium frame that I put in that had 1 day old eggs. They built more comb under the frame as it was a deep NUC.
Maybe that will help a little.


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## A'sPOPPY (Oct 13, 2010)

Swarm cells start with a queen cup where the queen lays the egg that is intended to become a queen.
Emergency cells are modified worker cells.
Question? Which is a supersede cell-emergency or planned?


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## Tomson (Feb 9, 2015)

A'sPOPPY said:


> Swarm cells start with a queen cup where the queen lays the egg that is intended to become a queen.
> Emergency cells are modified worker cells.
> Question? Which is a supersede cell-emergency or planned?


It might be a helpful thing that these cells were all large as it was drone comb.


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## tech.35058 (Jul 29, 2013)

Swarm cells, supersedure cells or emergency cells, it is a moot point .
what ever you have is what you have, unless you want to buy & introduce a queen.
If you want to make "a" split, then make a split.
If you can scrounge enough bees ( on frames with food & brood) to make multi boxes, even from other hives, then give each cell a couple of frames.
I would move them away from the yard with the parent hive, to eliminate drift back home & abandoning the new queen cell.
This multiplies your chances of making a good queen by 4X, also multiplies your chances of making a bad queen by 4X.
chances of mishap on mating flight, etc. but you have 4 chances.
I am a newbie, but I would pull the frames for the nucs about a day, or 12 hours before introducing the queen cells.
Others can tell you what & when on that. decide how much you want to set back the donor hives, it part of the decision.
I would plan to move QC on day 6 after first capped cell, if you miss it, all the others will die.
Roll the dice ... 
CE
PS, your queen cells look great to me, but what do I know.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Emergency cells refer to the situation in which they were created. The queen was lost unexpectedly so the hive must make queencells with the correct age larva wherever they're located. Supercedure and swarm cells are planned. Location is irrelevent, the bees will make cups where they can depending on comb structure or more likely imperfections in the comb. My only concern is the drone comb above the cells and if those are viable.


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## Tomson (Feb 9, 2015)

JRG13 said:


> Emergency cells refer to the situation in which they were created. The queen was lost unexpectedly so the hive must make queencells with the correct age larva wherever they're located. Supercedure and swarm cells are planned. Location is irrelevent, the bees will make cups where they can depending on comb structure or more likely imperfections in the comb. My only concern is the drone comb above the cells and if those are viable.


Okay I think I have that down now I need to know the best way to proceed to get my queen mated and possibly get another split with a much stronger hive that I have that is overflowing with bees. 3 deeps with top deep super 6 frames of honey.


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## tsmullins (Feb 17, 2011)

Tomson said:


> Okay I think I have that down now I need to know the best way to proceed to get my queen mated and possibly get another split with a much stronger hive that I have that is overflowing with bees. 3 deeps with top deep super 6 frames of honey.


If it were me, I would do the following:

1. Leave the swarm with the emergency cells alone. The queen will emerge and go on a mating flight a few days or so later. 
2. Split the booming colony. They have adequate resources to make their own queens.

Michael Bush has some great info on splitting. Splitting your strong colony will help prevent swarming, as well as increase your hive count.

Shane


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## umchuck (May 22, 2014)

there are peeps on here that a bunch more experience than I do, but some things I just know, with 3 and maybe more queen cells the hive is already geared to swarm, destroying cells will do nothing to change that, I would take the old queen and brood and stores to a nuc, let just 2 queen cells in the parent hive, if you let too many cells you still may have a secondary swarm with one of the virgins. Cells capped day 8 or 9 then queen stops laying getting ready to leave, I would split ASAP
rand


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## A'sPOPPY (Oct 13, 2010)

These cells being on drone frames is a bit puzzling?


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## Thershey (Mar 12, 2014)

tsmullins said:


> If it were me, I would do the following:
> 
> 1. Leave the swarm with the emergency cells alone. The queen will emerge and go on a mating flight a few days or so later.
> 2. Split the booming colony. They have adequate resources to make their own queens.
> ...


I completely agree with Shane on number 1 above, leave them be, ideally 2-3 QCs is good. One leaves little margin for error if you have a bad cell, more than 2-3 is a lot of hunting and killing of others for the first queen out.

As for your triple deep boomer with 5 frames of honey I would do the following split method. Just did this today on a couple myself. Assuming the queen isn't laying in the top box.
- pop the top box off and set aside for a minute. Pull two frames out and make space in the middle.
- back to the hive, pull out two brood frames with day old larvae or eggs (wet cells) from the lower boxes, shake all fees off to be sure the queen isn't there and move those frames to the opening you created in your top box. Replace those frames with whatever yiu use drawn if otherwise frames.
-put queen excluder on top of the second box.
- put the third box on top of the excluder, put lid on and leave them alone for a week.
- day 7-8 pop the lid, you should have fat juicy capped queen cells on the two frames.

At this point you can simply move the top box to a new stand as is and leave it alone for a few weeks while the new queen emerges, mates and starts laying. You have a healthy new start with bees, a new queen, stores etc.. Virtually no stress on the original colony, in the same yard with no drift issues etc... One note, you may very well end up with 10 or more queen cells on these two frames. You could try and make two weaker splits but I prefer to knock all cells down except two and make one strong split with just two QCs. You can do the same procedure over and over and create a split a week and help reduce swarming by gradually thinning the population by removing two frames of brood from your boomer every 7 days.


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## Tomson (Feb 9, 2015)

A'sPOPPY said:


> These cells being on drone frames is a bit puzzling?


Well this was the frame that I found that had the right age eggs in in it from another hive. 

So here is the history of that frame. I took a little piece of comb that I found in a feeder that I removed. I stuck it on the wires of a medium frame. I put the frame on the outside of the brood of one of my filled hives to reduce the swarm pressure, along with other foundation frames. The idea was to stimulate wax production. It did, they drew that out in a week. And the second week it had the Drone caps and new eggs in some of the other cells. I thought hey, this would be the new eggs that I need to see if the swarm that had no queen would make a queen, and it was just a little bit of space that they could surely cover. They had already had two frame of brood but it was mostly capped. I didn't find any suitable frames from the hive on previous attempts. So that is how it got there and why it is mostly drones on the top.


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## Tomson (Feb 9, 2015)

Thershey said:


> I completely agree with Shane on number 1 above, leave them be, ideally 2-3 QCs is good. One leaves little margin for error if you have a bad cell, more than 2-3 is a lot of hunting and killing of others for the first queen out.
> 
> As for your triple deep boomer with 5 frames of honey I would do the following split method. Just did this today on a couple myself. Assuming the queen isn't laying in the top box.
> - pop the top box off and set aside for a minute. Pull two frames out and make space in the middle.
> ...


I really like this. Sounds easy and really no risk. Only one question why do the bees that are moving up and down through the queen excluder make a new queen? Don't they have access to the existing queen. So I don't understand why they would make a queen.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

Mmmm.... Just had another look at your photo's. Didn't realize that it was the drone frame in the swarm hive. It's possible that they have made queen cells for a few Drones. Have heard of this happening when there is only Drones to choose from. So you'll just end up with a few very large drones.

You may have been lucky and they are actually queen cells, but you should propably put in another frame with eggs and young larvae in worker size cells.


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## sterling (Nov 14, 2013)

I would put a laying queen in there if I could get one. Queen cells on drone comb is kinda unusual.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

It's hard to say for sure, she might've squeezed some worker brood into those bottom cells. The good sign is, they drew some queencells though, if you put a nice frame of worker brood in there, they should draw some more. If they are drones, they might destroy those cells in a day or so and you'll know then.


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