Egg in a play cell

[scuttlefish]

I found a newly laid (i.e. Standing upright) egg in a queen cup/play cell a couple of days ago, but no royal jelly. Despite my extensive (not) beekeeping experience I haven't seen that before. Is that (normally) just the queen laying in an open cell or is it an intended queen? For some reason I thought queen cells were charged with royal jelly before being occupied, but I could of course be wrong.

 

[sharonh]

Keep an eye on it. Yes it's fed with royal jelly if its an intended queen. Check it in a couple of days. Where and how many cups were there. Were they on the face of wax in frame or on the bottom.
Sharon


Love Beekeeping <3

 

[sharonh]

Just to clarify, the earliest you can identify a viable queen cell is when it's already 3 days old. A egg in a q cup does not necessarily mean it will become a queen. The colony makes that decision when the egg hatches on day 3, then the nurse bees start to feed the larva with royal jelly.
A q cup with a pool of royal jelly and a tiny larva in it will be taken full term to become a sealed queen cell.
So don't panic yet, keep a check on it.



Love Beekeeping <3

 

[Sadders]

Oops.

I found one of these too. 5-6 play cups on a frame. One with and egg on its side.

Had been waiting for them to start preparations to swarm as the BB is fairly full, numbers are high and plenty of drones.

May have been panic but I did an AS.

I suppose the worst that will happen is they raise a scrub queen (loads of BIAS).

My plan now is to leave them for 2-3 weeks. If all has gone wrong I can unite them back together then.

May have a peek to see if they need supering in between.

 

[Swarm]

After going through reducing to just one or two queen cells.

 

[scuttlefish]

Cheers all. Just realised this thread posted twice for some reason.

Sharon, about a dozen play cells through the brood box (same for all my hives) but only one (on the face of the comb) had an egg in it. I'll be checking again tomorrow anyway, even if it hasn't developed into a QC it's about time to do a demaree on that hive (or an AS if it has become a QC).

 

[sharonh]

Cheers all. Just realised this thread posted twice for some reason.

Sharon, about a dozen play cells through the brood box (same for all my hives) but only one (on the face of the comb) had an egg in it. I'll be checking again tomorrow anyway, even if it hasn't developed into a QC it's about time to do a demaree on that hive (or an AS if it has become a QC).

Don't act before you know the situation. if and when a pool of royal jelly in cup, then make a decision on your next move. You can then find the queen & do A/S.
it was only an egg as you said, which doesn't necessarily mean it will be turned into a queen, just because it was in a play cup.
regards
Sharon


Love Beekeeping <3

 

[Sadders]

Well thats good news for me.

After doing a (possibly premature AS) I checked on wednesday (4 days after AS).

Old queen is laying nicely in new hive and they've started to draw foundation.

The old moved hive is very calm. The single egg in play cell is now a QC with larva and jelly. There were about 10 QCs with larva and jelly of which 2 were sealed.

I destroyed all but a good open cell and a closed cell.

Will leave them to it for a few weeks now.

 

[Marton]

Perhaps a stupid question from someone who is in the middle of his first AS but why an open and closed QC?

Won't that mean a cast?


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[MartinL]

I found a newly laid (i.e. Standing upright) egg in a queen cup/play cell a couple of days ago, . . . . . . .

Then perhaps it's not a "play cell" any more!

 

[Sadders]

Perhaps a stupid question from someone who is in the middle of his first AS but why an open and closed QC?

Won't that mean a cast?


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Its my first one too. I left 2 as an insurance policy. If I loose a caste then so be it, as long as I have a viable queen. Hopefully the first one out will knock off the other one anyway.

 

[oliver90owner]

I left 2 as an insurance policy.

You have your old queen, you had one cell that was clearly not a dud, so possibly you did not need to leave a closed cell as well.

If she was still laying when you A/Sed four days ago, you are looking for a cast by leaving them with the opportunity to make more queen cells - which are more likely to result in scrub queens, one of which would head the colony!

Leaving them alone from now is also tempting fate because you have not yet completed the A/S in one other imporrant way.

If you don't do it properly - that means completely - the odds of cast(s) rise(s) very significantly, from zilch if you check and remove all other possible cells, and reduce the flying bees if leaving more than a single cell.

Get it done properly and completely is my advice. Its like insuring a car and then crashing while drink-driving, and expecting the insurers to cover the damage. It's called negligence.

 

[Eyeman]

As the last post said:

reduce the flying bees if leaving more than a single cell.

Lots of Beeks want to still leave 2 QCs for insurance. Fine. But get those flying bees out by alternating the position of the Q- hive on the new site to either side of the Q+ hive on old site.

 

[oliver90owner]

To be honest, moving it away by a few metres would suffice, just as well.

There are simple reasons for moving the hive specifically to the opposite side of the original site. Two I can think of for a start, apart from depleting the flying bees (which, as I pointed out above, can be achieved by moving the hive somewhere else, within reason).