Random Re-Queening

[Apiarist3000]

I've heard amongst beekeeping friends that alot of colony's seem to be re-Queening for no aparent reason this year.

One of my colony's, which was my first, was one I brought up from an apidea of last year, and are now at 10 frames of brood since I put them in a nuc in early March. The Queen is super and lays huge amounts of eggs yet for some reason they seem to build new cells, with an egg in.. Then rip them down before I inspect 7 days later. So far they've done this 4 times and each time I find 2-3 new QC's with an egg/larva.

Should I let them re-Queen or should I rub out the cells if I find capped ones or ones about to be capped.. Or maybe cut them out and try to help out some of my other colony's?

[Brian D. Bray]

Some hives build, tear down, rebuild, tear down queen cells all season long.  If they are not developing the cells to the point of capping before tearing the cell out I would say it is just the bees being cautious and hedging their bets in the case of an unexpected queen failure.  Some hives it's normal behavior. 

[Apiarist3000]

Some hives build, tear down, rebuild, tear down queen cells all season long.  If they are not developing the cells to the point of capping before tearing the cell out I would say it is just the bees being cautious and hedging their bets in the case of an unexpected queen failure.  Some hives it's normal behavior. 

Well upon recent inspection yesterday they were still at it. This time I had 4 capped cells and one open with a big larva. I removed one cell for use elsewhere, crushed 3 and left them with the open one. I did kinda think they may be wanting to swarm before but now I think otherwise. Mainly because last time they were on 10 frames of brood, now there is only eggs on 2 frames and none of the other frames have been re-filled with eggs/young larva. The Queen was about also.
I gave them a super this time though, just to see what they do.

[Michael Bush]

>should I rub out the cells if I find capped ones

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#stopcuttingswarmcells

Cutting out queen cells is a good way to end up queenless.

[Apiarist3000]

I was always told that it's better to leave them an open one, if you have one. That way you can be sure you actually have something in it!

[Michael Bush]

>I've heard amongst beekeeping friends that alot of colony's seem to be re-Queening for no aparent reason this year

I've been hearing that since Apistan and Checkmite become commonly used.

[Brian D. Bray]

I just finished checking my bees.  The one hive that had been building  supercedure cells finished and the queen has hatched.  I saw her.  The old queen was all black, the new one is gold with the last 2 segments of the abdomen black so it's deffinitely a different queen.  The problem with the supercedure is that except for some drawn comb and hatching brood, and the new eggs the new queen has just started laying the hive is no further along than when it was a 1 week old hive from package.  I'm hoping this hive will now kick into gear and catch up to the others.