best advise

[betterbee]

Looking through some of my hives found 5 with average of 4/6 frames of perfect brood in all stages ,queen present and laying but 1 to 2 queen cells per hive,verry few drones around,despatched queencells.What would others do?
martin

 

[kazmcc]

What was in the queen cells?

 

[VEG]

leave them to sort it out sounds like supercedure

 

[kazmcc]

Is supercedure more common this time of year? I'm hearing more about it just lately.

 

[VEG]

Is supercedure more common this time of year? I'm hearing more about it just lately.

Yes

 

[betterbee]

Did not want to take chance of loosing queen,would supersedure queen be equal at this time of year.Never had as many attempts by perfect queens at supersedure this late

 

[Erichalfbee]

According to your bees their queens are not so perfect.
Leave them to it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

 

[oliver90owner]

.What would others do?

Not interfere. The bees know best.

 

[masterBK]

Late supersedure can sometimes be a problem if the weather turns cold and the drones are thrown out early( quite likely this year based on weather this week). Poorly mated or unmated queens can result. Suggest let them supersede but put queen and a couple of hundred bees in mininuc as insurance.

 

[oliver90owner]

If she is still in there laying and they are superceding, you would most likely have both queens living in harmony for a while, no brood break and likely the maximum number of brood the colony can support.

So I still say stop interfering - they may just make swarm cells instead and be gone in less than a week, and any eventual matings will be that much later in the season. If the queens are failing, better to change now rather than if they go drone layers or peg. Leave them alone, it is only half way through August. Drones will only be kicked out from colonies under threat of starvation at this timeof the season, not from umpteen colonies that are superceding (a good trait for a mated queen?)

Sooo many reasons to leave them alone to get on with doing what bees do best - surviving.

 

[Ely]

Rab. Can you clear some of your PMs. I have some private news for you. You may already know

 

[masterBK]

Drones were being kicked out today from most of my colonies and none of the colonies are starving (Double brood hives with several combs of stores) so maybe it is the low temperatures and lack of forage coming in that is triggering it.

Supersedure can go two ways either the daughter kills her mother on emergence or she doesn't. If she kills her mother (which in my experience occurs more frequently than the alternative) and there are few drones around then poor mating can result hence my recommendation to put the original queen in a mininuc just in case.

 

[betterbee]

Thanks queen to mini nuc seems to be the right answer,had problems in past with late mated queens
martin