# Finding some queen cells with the queens upside down



## Heintz88 (Feb 26, 2012)

As in the larva are upside down inside the cell?


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## beegeorge (Apr 19, 2012)

the queen must be from the southern hemisphere,, where everything is upside down... ( just joking please dont jump on me)


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

stevethebeeman said:


> Anyone ever run into this I've been a commercial beekeeper almost 30 yrs never seen anything like it ill post up some pics ill keep a few.


I've heard of it, but have never seen it. Are they alive? I've heard that when they turn upside down in the cell they lose contact with their food and starve...


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

We have seen it during the yellow jasmine bloom. Not sure if that is the reason or not.


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## stevethebeeman (Mar 27, 2013)

babybee said:


> We have seen it during the yellow jasmine bloom. Not sure if that is the reason or not.


No yellow jasma here mostly south of us . Yes they are alive but unless they can make a u turn and get out don't think its gonna happen.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I've done many postmortem's on queen cells that fail. I have seen a few where the pupae were heads-up, and would obviously not be able to emerge. I've even seen one pupae develop in a jack-knife position, with a 180 degree bend between the thorax and abdomen, where the head and tip of abdomen meet (both were pointing down). She also failed to complete her development and emerge - for obvious reasons.

Unfortunately, the cause for any of these malformations and mispositions is extremely difficult to determine with much certainty.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

What are the ages of the cells? If the virgins are mature and they hatch and are not immediately attended by nurse bees the will crawl back in looking for jelly remnants to eat. The get stuck there and have to have the rest of the cell peeled back to release them if they are still alive.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

JBJ said:


> What are the ages of the cells? If the virgins are mature and they hatch and are not immediately attended by nurse bees the will crawl back in looking for jelly remnants to eat. The get stuck there and have to have the rest of the cell peeled back to release them if they are still alive.


I have seen this as well, though I was never sure what motivated them to crawl back in. I theorized they were looking for protection.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Well, I doubt this one was old enough to crawl anywhere. She must have been facing the correct way to grow to purple eye stage, but why she turned around, who knows?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Good pic Mike. I will admit to never fully grasping how the royal jelly gets consumed yet the queen ends up facing away from it. Perhaps pulling a frame and rotating it during an inspection at a critical juncture might cause it to happen? Dunno. At some point in the pupation process she has to get properly oriented. I suppose the main difference between the development of queens and either workers or drones, is the cell itself is far larger than the virgin that is developing within it. Stuff happens I guess.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

I've found a worker bee stuck in a queen cell the wrong way. The cell had been resealed.

It looked to me like the worker had gone in to eat the royal jelly and another bee seeing the cell was occupied resealed it.

Maybe the queens had gone back in to eat the remaining royal jelly and they also had the cells resealed on them.


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## jonathan (Nov 3, 2009)

A worker bee inside a resealed queen cell is quite a common thing to find.



> Perhaps pulling a frame and rotating it during an inspection at a critical juncture might cause it to happen?


Could be. The cells are very delicate for the next 4 days after they are sealed and could probably get damaged quite easily.


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## Little-John (Jun 18, 2015)

Tomorrow was supposed to be emergence day, but it's been very hot during the last week so I wasn't surprised to see one virgin running around very lively inside her roller cage. I was just checking to see if any of the others were about to emerge, when I spotted something black moving through the side of a Nicot cell-cup. On closer inspection, sure enough something was alive and trying to get out. So I peeled back some wax, and a gorgeous fully-formed queen emerged.

Now I'd noticed that her cell was not quite as long as the others, and there were 3 other cells in this batch of 16 of the same small size. I had planned to ditch those as being sub-standard anyway, so out of curiosity, I opened them up. Two produced viable upside-down queens, the third was upside-down, fully-formed, but dead.

So - 3 upside-down queens are now in mating nucs - but will be watched very carefully just in case this might be some kind of genetic flaw ...
LJ


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

The only thing I can think of is they lose contact with the jelly and fall out just before pupating, or they run out of jelly and fall towards the tip of the cell, forcing them to pupate facing the wrong way since they have to 'stand up' prior to spinning a cocoon.


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