# Help!!! is it a queen cell ????



## BeeAnonymous (Aug 27, 2007)

OK, I'm just a newbie, this is my 1st spring, I began last summer. I know the ones on the lower right are drone cells, but what about the bigger one. Queen cell ??? bigger than the drone ceels, but doesn't look like pictures of queen cells in the books.

Thanks


----------



## Scut Farkas (Jun 7, 2007)

Looks like a zit to me.


----------



## BEES4U (Oct 10, 2007)

*What Is It.*

remove the capping and compare it to a known drone cell.
Tdrone cappings can be like looking at a box of 22 shells.
Nice photo!
Ernie
Lucas Apiaries


----------



## Jeffzhear (Dec 2, 2006)

all the queen cells I have seen are verticle, not horizontal...looks like a drone cell to me.


----------



## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

I would say no...but there's a big question mark and arrow attacking your hive . Don't know if you noticed!!!


----------



## MountainCamp (Apr 12, 2002)

All of the capped cells look like drones.
Looks like the surrounding cells aren't drawn out as far yet, as the area around the other capped drones.


----------



## BeeAnonymous (Aug 27, 2007)

*WOW, thanks*

thanks for the info. Glad you people are here to help out. It does make sence, well, except for the pimple observation 

Thanks a bunch


----------



## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)




----------



## Oldbee (Sep 25, 2006)

It does look different than the drone cells on the right. Maybe it's nothing--just a drone cell. I haven't seen anything like that but the drone cells have all looked the same to me. It would be interesting when seeing something like that to put some kind of,.."push-in cage" over it.


----------



## vajerzy (Feb 5, 2008)

I had something similar last year in June- I identified it as a supercedure cell. Mine was empty- the opening was pointing down though. Yours looks like an uber-drone cell.


----------



## kirk-o (Feb 2, 2007)

The one looks like a queen cell in the making
kirkobeeo


----------



## Matt Guyrd (Nov 28, 2007)

Bear with me as I am new to this adventure...

What type of frame are you using? Looks to be metal or plastic.

It looks like the drone cells are below the frame. Is that called burr comb? Also, it appears to be a lot of burr comb (couple of inches?)...what type of hive box did the frame come from that allows bees to build that much comb on the bottom of a frame. Seems to me that there is bee space violations?

Again...just starting out here, so my observations are pretty green.

Very cool pictures (BeeAnonymous and WVBeekeeper) though! Thanks for sharing.

Matt


----------



## CSbees (Aug 7, 2007)

Mine started building queen cells this time last year.


----------



## Hobie (Jun 1, 2006)

From the "you'll know it when you see it" Dept., here is a queen cell I found last year. The first one I had ever seen.


----------



## Matt Guyrd (Nov 28, 2007)

Hobie said:


> From the "you'll know it when you see it" Dept., here is a queen cell I found last year. The first one I had ever seen.
> 
> I suspect supercedure due to the placement of the queen cell (high on the frame)...was there anything wrong with the queen that you could tell?
> 
> Matt


----------



## Hobie (Jun 1, 2006)

Not that I could tell, but I'm new at this and have a devil of a time even finding the queen. You can see a relatively decent brood pattern in the photo. They did swarm not long after this photo.


----------



## WVbeekeeper (Jun 4, 2007)

MountainCamp said:


> All of the capped cells look like drones.
> Looks like the surrounding cells aren't drawn out as far yet, as the area around the other capped drones.


This is what happened. The cells around it are shallow and when the queen laid the drone egg in this shallow cell, the larva developed its cocoon which sticks out of the cell farther than average due to the cell originally being shallow.


----------



## CSbees (Aug 7, 2007)

If you do see a well formed queen cell, take that frame out with another frame and some bees and make a nuc. Make sure not to get the original queen. I love making splits this way.


----------



## hummingberd (Aug 26, 2006)

CSbees said:


> If you do see a well formed queen cell, take that frame out with another frame and some bees and make a nuc. Make sure not to get the original queen. I love making splits this way.


Nice suggestion, thanks! That sure does make swarm maintenance and splits pretty easy!


----------



## Hobie (Jun 1, 2006)

Just make sure it's not a supercedure cell that the original hive NEEDS.


----------

