Resealed QC

[Chiangmai member]

Dropped a queen cell into a queenless colony last weekend and checked on it yesterday morning. It hadn't hatched, so dropped a caged laying queen into the same colony. This morning when I checked on her, the queen was dead in the cage. Closer inspection of the colony revealed a viable mated queen running around. So she had probably killed the caged queen, but where had she come from?..... Took out the unopened queen cell which showed no signs of an exit; opened the cell and.... it was empty! Amazingly, the workers must have resealed the QC after she had hatched. 11 years raising bees in Thailand and still learning!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Yes, that's quite common. I always look into old queen cells. Sometimes you see a worker entombed. She's gone in for the remains of the royal jelly and got sealed up.

 

[hemo]

I'm the same, I always check QC's that are sealed well past there time.
Last year I marked a single QC on the very edge of the frame where they almost hid one, the nice size cell was sealed and I new when she would emerge approx 4 days later, knowing my next visit would be about 8 or 9 days away I thought no more. On my next visit and quick look I found said cell sealed so though yep closed up again but also 2 new sealed QC and assumed these may have been for insurance.

I laid the frame on the top bars and tried to knock the cap off and found it and the rest of the cell quite thick and hard so used my wing clippers to slice the top off, I was very surprised to see a fully developed Q emerge. This was day 20/21 and she was hungry, she went straight to some open stores and fed her self. It was some 10 - 15 seconds before the bees responded to her and accepted her. First and only time this has occurred with me.