Newly mated queen, immediate supercedure cells. What the...?

[beekake]

About a month ago, I united two colonies. The queenless half obviously didn't like their new queen, and bumped her off, and raised queen cells from eggs laid by their former queen, who I had bumped off immediately prior to the unite.

Fast forward 3 weeks, around time for the new queen to have hatched, mated and settled in to lay. I discovered a few sealed brood cells, a few visible larvae, and around 8 almost sealed queen cells, all in the upper third of the frames. I've seen this kind of thing before when a new queen gets going but before she settles down to serious business, so I took down the cells and looked again today, a week later. This time, the same thing, but slightly fewer queen cells. Eggs were visible here and there. This time I left the queen cells...

Has anyone got an explanation or seen a similar situation?

Thanks.

 

[madasafish]

Badly mated queen.."eggs were visible .. here and there"..

A properly mated queen lays eggs in a consistent pattern.

 

[Finman]

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Or sick, or something organic malfunction. Who knows. . .
.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Fast forward 3 weeks, around time for the new queen to have hatched, mated and settled in to lay.

Did you see this queen?

Has anyone got an explanation or seen a similar situation?

Laying workers.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Did you see this queen?



Laying workers.

 

[beekake]

No, I've not seen the queen yet...but the brood that has been capped is not drone...

 

[Robbo8916]

Mine have been doing this over and over again. I knew they had a laying queen as she was laying and I found her, clipped her and marked her. They decided to replace her. They have done the same twice since.

They're doing my head in. Going to consider a unite with my lovely queenright nuc colony. Or it may be a case of shake and find your way in? Not really sure but they keep doing the same thing as you say yours are doing. And they're not even on 5 frames of brood!

 

[Finman]

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I bought queens a month ago. One was able to lay only one frame and bees started to replace her 2 weeks after laying start. These are not rare cases.

Poor laying is not explanation to all things.