# Remove supercedure cells???



## kpence73 (Apr 9, 2011)

A week ago I found a single queen cell at the top of one of the brood frames. The queen I have is marked and she was in the brood. The patterns are solid in the brood chamber. I removed the queen cell at the time. I just did another inspection and once again found a single queen cell at the top of a brood frame. My hive also has a medium super for the upper brood. It was full of larva and very solid patterns. The marked queen was in the lower brood but I didnt notice eggs in the empty brood cells, but the larva and capped patterns are good. I removed this queen cell as well. It is only one each time. The first one was empty, but this one had royal jelly. Didn't see a larva in it, but I assume there was. With a strong pattern, I'm pretty sure there is not a problem with my queen and it is only one queen cell not several. 

Should I let them hatch a new queen???

The hive is now 8 weeks old.


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## ken rice (Apr 28, 2010)

Hives build queen cups quite often for insurance. As long as they are open, not to worry.If they cap and raise a queen,they know more and have been doing this longer than us.I let nature take its course if the cup is in the supercedure position.If the cup is in the swarm position I will usually eliminate it and figure out what the problem is. Usually it is a case of needing more space.Being a first year hive,usually swarming is not a problem.


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## MDS (Jan 9, 2011)

Agree with ken rice and will add that the closer you get to fall weather the harder it will become to introduce a new queen because of less nector flow. Introducing new queens is easier during a strong nector flow. If you go into fall with a poor queen then there may not be enough bees raised in the fall to go through winter (you want young bees for winter cluster). 

So, if you remove supercedure cells or emergency cells and your queen goes bad you could be sunk if she is not able to breed and start new bees which takes a good month. Removing supercedure cells or emergency cells in the nector flow is less dangerous as you can order a mated queen in time to build up the bee population before winter.

The third type of queen cell would be a swarm cell. There are mixed opinions on if they are good for starting a nuc (I do) but generally folks agree to remove them as part of swarm prevention.


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## kpence73 (Apr 9, 2011)

So I picked up another hive today. Do you recommend splitting my hold hive and putting a frame with a supercedure cell in it and letting them do another supercedure for the current hive? The last time did inspections there were so many bees they boiled out like an overflowing toilet (I know, weird analogy) and almost completely covered the outside of the hive while I worked.


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

If your bees are that strong, you can split. Especially this time of year. I wouldn't have pulled those cells. It's easier, in my opinion, to manage them as they do their own thing rather than try to get them to do it your way.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I never remove supersedure cells. The only times I every have I have regretted it.


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## kpence73 (Apr 9, 2011)

I suspect there will another one in a week. I will leave it alone. In the meantime I am going to split the hive. I will have to buy a queen.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

You are certainly not the only one, but why does everyone want to buy a queen? Buying a queen fails more often than it succeeds because they often (more often than not) have a new virgin queen that just isn't laying yet who kills the new one. Or, not all the time but often enough, they will reject the new queen anyway, or they have laying workers (this happens well before definitive evidence will prove it as evidence by spotty brood and only a few capped drones but no noticeable multiple eggs yet) and they kill the new queen. The most foolproof solution to any queen issue is to give them the resources to resolve it and let them. The least foolproof, next to doing nothing, and most expensive is to buy a queen.


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## kpence73 (Apr 9, 2011)

Because there has only been one supercedure cell during each inspection. If I split the hive, it will need a queen. As others have said, if they are trying to place the current one moving her to a new split will result in the same thing. From what I have gathered from others, you don't want a queen reared from an emergency cell. Also from advice by several local people I have been told not to start a new hive with a capped supercedure cell because I'm not experienced enough yet and it could be a disaster.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>From what I have gathered from others, you don't want a queen reared from an emergency cell. 

Two of the greatest beekeepers in history disagree...

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#Queens Reared by the Emergency Method
Emergency queens:
"It has been stated by a number of beekeepers who should know better (including myself) that the bees are in such a hurry to rear a queen that they choose larvae too old for best results. later observation has shown the fallacy of this statement and has convinced me that bees do the very best that can be done under existing circumstances. 

"The inferior queens caused by using the emergency method is because the bees cannot tear down the tough cells in the old combs lined with cocoons. The result is that the bees fill the worker cells with bee milk floating the larvae out the opening of the cells, then they build a little queen cell pointing downward. The larvae cannot eat the bee milk back in the bottom of the cells with the result that they are not well fed. However, if the colony is strong in bees, are well fed and have new combs, they can rear the best of queens. And please note-- they will never make such a blunder as choosing larvae too old."--Jay Smith, Better Queens

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmillermethod.htm
C.C. Miller's view of emergency queens

"If it were true, as formerly believed, that queenless bees are in such haste to rear a queen that they will select a larva too old for the purpose, then it would hardly do to wait even nine days. A queen is matured in fifteen days from the time the egg is laid, and is fed throughout her larval lifetime on the same food that is given to a worker-larva during the first three days of its larval existence. So a worker-larva more than three days old, or more than six days from the laying of the egg would be too old for a good queen. If, now, the bees should select a larva more than three days old, the queen would emerge in less than nine days. I think no one has ever known this to occur. Bees do not prefer too old larvae. As a matter of fact bees do not use such poor judgment as to select larvae too old when larvae sufficiently young are present, as I have proven by direct experiment and many observations."--Fifty Years Among the Bees, C.C. Miller


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## iwombat (Feb 3, 2009)

Some of my best, and my worst queens have been supercedure queens. It has much more to do with available drones and good mating weather than the type of queen cell.


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## CreamPuffFarm (Apr 28, 2011)

ken rice said:


> I let nature take its course if the cup is in the supercedure position.If the cup is in the swarm position


 Please explain where these positions are and/or how to tell the difference between the two. Thanks.


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## ken rice (Apr 28, 2010)

Supercedure cells will be on the upper half of a frame. Swarm cells will be along the bottom of the frame. They both basically look similar to a peanut shell


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## mbcpa (Feb 10, 2011)

How about emergency queen cells?


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## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

Swarm cells and supercedure cells can be located anywhere on a frame. I recently had a hive swarm after building over 3 dozen cells on 3 frames. Had cells on the bottoms, many on the ends, and about a dozen across the middle of the frames. As Michael Bush says, it doesn't matter what kind of cells they are, they're all cells. The bees decided they needed them so leave them alone, unless you want to cut out a few for splits. You can't take everything you read in a beekeeping book as the Gospel. Sometimes you need to use a little common sense. How do you tell the difference anyway, between a swarm cell and a supercedure cell, when most of the time there are multiples of either one.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I would look at the whole context of the queen cells. A few cells in a hive not crowded are probably supersedure or emergency, regardless of their location. A lot of cells in a booming hive are probably swarm cells, regardless of their location.


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## ronnyclif (Jul 5, 2004)

If you are persistent on keeping your old queen; locate her and take a frame of bees & brood place in nuc and move to new location. Let the supercedure cell be your new queen. You'll add another hive and save $20 on purchasing another queen.


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## Oldbee (Sep 25, 2006)

_"The queen I have is marked and she was in the brood. The patterns are solid in the brood chamber. I removed the queen cell at the time."_
_"I never remove supersedure cells. The only times I every have I have regretted it." M.Bush._

_"You are certainly not the only one, but why does everyone want to buy a queen?" - M.Bush._

"Certainly",..many "new beeks" [organic, new wave, ,.. sustainable beekeeping/beekeepers] *buy* queens from *you* because you have raised 'survivor' bees/queens on small cell and have very little problems mites; is that not true?

Many new beeks order bees/queens that are advertized as "survivors" without chemical treatments. Lo and behold,..these packages and queens "supersede" [or supersedure/swarm cells are found] within a short time from introduction. So,..what to do??

_"If you are persistent on keeping your old queen; locate her and take a frame of bees & brood place in nuc and move to new location. Let the supercedure cell be your new queen." _

Is this a good idea for a small time [5-10 colonies] beekeeper to preserve the survivor "genetics" of the queens they have purchased? If you can get the eggs and brood seperated with the queen from the bees that were in the package, will this decrease the likelyhood that this queen will be superseded? 

A beekeeper with many hives [more than ten] can afford to introduce 5 or more purchased "survivor queens" into their apiary, and if a few colonies [1-3] "decide" to supersede those queens it is not a "big deal".

A beekeeper with 1-3 hives that tries to introduce survivor queens,.. into their apiary and those colonies are bent on superseding those queens, then isn't the beekeeper pretty much out of luck?
​


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>"Certainly",..many "new beeks" [organic, new wave, ,.. sustainable beekeeping/beekeepers] buy queens from you because you have raised 'survivor' bees/queens on small cell and have very little problems mites; is that not true?

They are buying genetics. My point is that people see a supersedure cell and want to buy a queen. They see no brood (usually because of a supersedure or a swarm) and they buy a queen, who gets killed by the resident virgin.

>Many new beeks order bees/queens that are advertized as "survivors" without chemical treatments. Lo and behold,..these packages and queens "supersede" [or supersedure/swarm cells are found] within a short time from introduction. So,..what to do??

I see the panic, but her daughter may do as well or better.

>A beekeeper with 1-3 hives that tries to introduce survivor queens,.. into their apiary and those colonies are bent on superseding those queens, then isn't the beekeeper pretty much out of luck?

You will have her daughter in a year or three anyway and the bees have decided to make it now. Fighting them just ends up with queenlessness which is no help.


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