Queen cell cup?

[sweet bee]

I was doing inspection today on my 7 week old hive and took photos.  I remember seeing this one and it appeared to be a queen cell cup. I'm I correct? I left it but right now I'm resisting the urge to remove it tomorrow. (As you can see, I spotted the beloved queen  :shock: 





Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Finski]

.
Do I see capped queen cell hanging downwards?

If it is so. You are hurry to make false swarm to avoid swarming.

[FRAMEshift]

Well Finski, what if there is only one?  You wouldn't do a false swarm then.  It appears to be at the top of the frame, so it is more likely to be a supersedure cell.  In any case, I would not destroy it, and I would only do a false swarm if you have lots of bees and several capped queen cells so you can have at least one in each part of the split.

[sweet bee]

I've had a second medium on the hive for 3 weeks. It has very very little drawn comb which they have stored honey in. If they were too overcrowed, wouldn't they have moved up to the top by now? To anwer Finski's quesion: Think there were two or three others on the frame also (not shown in pic)

~Angie

[sweet bee]

Well Finski, what if there is only one?  You wouldn't do a false swarm then.  It appears to be at the top of the frame, so it is more likely to be a supersedure cell.  In any case, I would not destroy it, and I would only do a false swarm if you have lots of bees and several capped queen cells so you can have at least one in each part of the split.

Frameshift, What is a supercedure cell? I thought it was to replace a weak queen. This one looked to be doing a great job. I had one frame front and back that was filled with capped brood from corner to corner.

~Angie

[Brian D. Bray]

I've had a second medium on the hive for 3 weeks. It has very very little drawn comb which they have stored honey in. If they were too overcrowed, wouldn't they have moved up to the top by now? To anwer Finski's quesion: Think there were two or three others on the frame also (not shown in pic)

~Angie

Neither number of supers on a hive nor the amount of undrawn combs matters when it comes to either superceding a queen or swarming.  The length of the cell in the 1st picture would indicate that it is no longer a queen cup but a qeen cell whether capped or not.  Supercedure cells are usually numbered between 1-6 midway up the frame (middle of normal brood area) but can be a dozen or more in some cases.   The more supercedure cells present the greater the probability of a swarm issuing as well. 

There is more than one way in which a hive can find itself crowded:
1. Too many bees for the given space.
2. Not enough brood cell space (honeybound) in which the queen can lay eggs.
3. A preceived barrier the bees won't cross:  Queen excluder, too much frame space between boxes, A super added too early before there's enough bees to occupy the current space, or A frame the bees refuse to draw out for once reason or another.

What the beekeeper sees in a queen is her physical condition and her egg laying pattern.  There is much more that matter to the bees such as phenomone output, egg production vitality (ie number of eggs per hour), number of drones she mated with (part of the phenmone output), overall health, deformaties (too small for the human eye to see), as well as several other factors.

Queens reared in hives that are at or near being constantly medicated or treated for various ailments, pests, paracites, or imagined conditions (sometimes mandated by governmental regulations) are much more prone to being superceded.  This appears to be the trend by reports I've gotten from beekeepers I know (including myself) and items posted on this forum.

Remeber that bees will only occupy the number of frames in a hive where the population can physically cover every sqaure inch of space.  If there are not enough bee population to force them to move to an adjcent frame or super they will not do so, and they will not draw out combs on the unoccupied frames regardless of how much the are fed or they forage for.  Instead they will back fill the brood area creating a honeybound condition that will cause them to swarm from being too crowded for the space they do occupy.