# Queen Cell Cups / Royal Jelly / Egg



## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Does anyone know if you see royal jelly in a QC whether it's placed there before or after the egg is deposited? 

Also, if the queen actually measures a cup prior to depositing an fertilized or non-fertilized egg (and places an non-fertilized egg into a larger cell (drone cell)) how does she know to place a fertilized egg a queen cell. Is it possible the workers move an egg into that QC?


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

The egg comes first. 
The workers do not move eggs. 
Purchased queen cell cups are grafted into. 
The graftless systems such as the Nicot have a worker sized hole over the top of the cell cup, so that the cell size measures out to worker size when the queen checks it, so she lays a fertilized egg in it. Then you remove the cell cup when the egg has become a new larva to a cell bar frame, to be raised as a queen in a queenless cell starter.


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Ray, I meant a bee built QC not a QC cup..........


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

snl said:


> Does anyone know if you see royal jelly in a QC whether it's placed there before or after the egg is deposited?
> 
> Is it possible the workers move an egg into that QC?


Yes.

And *NO!!*


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

egg first, royal jelly second.

Queen cells are always oriented downward and the queen lays a female egg into the cell because of the orientation. Under some conditions, it is possible to get a queen to lay into a queen cell. The eggs laid always hatch into female bees. Even though queens are started, under some conditions the bees will tear down the cells and discontinue the effort to raise a new queen.

In a few instances, queen cells have been found above an excluder. The only way this could have happened is for a worker to move an egg or a larvae.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Fusion_power said:


> 1. The eggs laid always hatch into female bees.
> 
> 2. In a few instances, queen cells have been found above an excluder. The only way this could have happened is for a worker to move an egg or a larvae.


1. Not true. I have had two drones emerge alive from queen cells. I have also found other reports of this happening.

2. Due to the above has it been confirmed that the Pupa in the queen cell was in fact female. I have seen comments that indicate bees may move eggs.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Fusion_power said:


> egg first, royal jelly second.
> 
> Queen cells are always oriented downward and the queen lays a female egg into the cell because of the orientation. Under some conditions, it is possible to get a queen to lay into a queen cell. The eggs laid always hatch into female bees. Even though queens are started, under some conditions the bees will tear down the cells and discontinue the effort to raise a new queen.
> 
> In a few instances, queen cells have been found above an excluder. The only way this could have happened is for a worker to move an egg or a larvae.


Dar pretty much sums it up. When a hive has the swarming urge, never say never about much of anything. We have lots of plastic cell cups in our brood nests and you do occasionally see one get used for it's intended purpose but it's the exception. The great majority of the time the workers take a normally laid egg and rework the cell into a queen cell with the downward orientation. Personally I think the chances of bees moving an egg up through an excluder are approximately the same as a woman getting pregnant from a toilet seat......makes a good story albeit a tough one to either prove or disprove.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Fusion_power said:


> In a few instances, queen cells have been found above an excluder. The only way this could have happened is for a worker to move an egg or a larvae.


Or the queen went thru the excluder. Or the egg was laid before the excluder was installed. Or a newly mated queen returned to the hive and entered above the excluder, laid some eggs, and being newly mated was still small enuf to get thru the excluder and doing so went down. Those are the only ways.

The first time I read about such egg moving claims when back almost 30 years ago when I was in school in OH and I was looking thru the IBRA Bibliography. There was a paper by a Chekoslovakian who claimed that a caged queen was laying eggs thru the screen of the cage and that workers were taking those eggs and planting them in cells in the brood comb.

I'm pigheaded on this. I don't believe it's true. How would such an obscure trait develop in nature and then stay until such peculiar circumstance occured?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Daniel Y said:


> I have seen comments that indicate bees may move eggs.


I have seen comments that extraterestrial aliens landed at Area 54.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

jim lyon said:


> Personally I think the chances of bees moving an egg up through an excluder are approximately the same as a woman getting pregnant from a toilet seat......makes a good story albeit a tough one to either prove or disprove.


People do have sex on toilet seats. So I have heard.


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## marshmasterpat (Jun 26, 2013)

sqkcrk said:


> I have seen comments that extraterestrial aliens landed at Area 54.


Thought that was area 51? lol


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Those extraterrestrial aliens landed at Area 54, then moved picked up and their eggs to Area 51.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

I've been reading some posts that say small cell is only found in area 51.


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## TWall (May 19, 2010)

I'd stay away from toliet seats at area 51 myself.

Tom


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Those extraterrestrial aliens landed at Area 54, then moved picked up and their eggs to Area 51.


Laughed out loud on this one :applause:

You guys!:gh:


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

The debate of whether bees will move eggs or not has been going on for at least a hundred years. 

I suggest reading Scientific Queen Rearing by G.M.Doolittle. He did a lot of experiments and wrote his reasons for thinking and doing what he did. Very enlightening.

From my many readings and from my experiences, I say no, bees don't move eggs. I will not say they don't ever, anything is possible I guess, and there are people who say it does happen. I'm not there to see myself, and even if it does happen, it surely does not happen often enough (if it does at all) to be relied upon in any queen rearing operations or management.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

And this is now the second time in two weeks I have heard area 54 exists. And I am not making that up. But just having driven through that area I would say that Aliens would not be the strangest thing you could run into. What is placed right out in front of you makes you wonder what is going on.

You don't know, what you don't know.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Daniel Y said:


> You don't know, what you don't know.


Which would apply to everything you think you know, wouldn't it?


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

No Mark, it would apply to everything I don't know. Amazing how constantly the simplest principle just passes right over your head. What I think I know I am perfect aware of. That would be why I know I think it. Please show one instance where I had a thought that I had no idea I had. Or am I mistaken and this is just one more case where you are so eager to be insulting that you make yourself look like an idiot.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, Thanks.

I was just thinking about what Donald Rumsfeld said about "knowns", "unknowns", and "unknown unknowns". That's all.

Larry, I see what you meant.


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