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Heartstone Guard Bee
Joined: 02 Sep 2012 Posts: 65 Location: CO Sligo, Ireland
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 4:34 pm Post subject: Empty fully formed supercedure cell |
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I have a nuc I got in the first week of July. It has been doing well, however, today I looked in to find a fully formed but empty supercedure cell in the centre of one frame.
Fully capped brood, larvae at different stages and eggs all present. A good pattern across the frames and around 4 frames of brood. I did notice the some of the capped brood looks dark in colour.
Any ideas on what is going to, or has happened?
I am assuming the empty cell along with eggs in implies the queen has been superseded and a new mated queen is now laying.
Is an empty cell (absolutely clean inside) sign of a new queen just being started? or as I am lead to believe means it has already hatched?
Could it just be an old cell I never noticed before (although it is large)?
I don't think they have swarmed. |
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Dexter's shed Scout Bee
Joined: 16 May 2014 Posts: 307 Location: Grays, Essex, UK
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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if it was a supersedure then swarming has nothing to do with it, it's just queen replacement, was the cell smooth edged (not yet sealed) or jagged (newly emerged)
I personally would remove it, if they want to they will build another |
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Heartstone Guard Bee
Joined: 02 Sep 2012 Posts: 65 Location: CO Sligo, Ireland
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Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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I did not look to see if it was jagged or smooth. But it was completely empty. No egg or larvae present. |
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