Queen cell help for newcomer.

[wharfrat]

Hi from Virginia. I just started my first hive from a package in early June. I got a kit that is 3 medium supers. I started the package in a single super and fed a lot of sugar water for the first few weeks. I added the second super and moved a frame with brood into it. I have stopped feeding, but am considering restarting since there are still multiple frames that need to be drawn out. I do have capped brood, and recently some drone cells which is probably fine since I don't see as many drones as initially. There is capped honey in the corners of the frames that are loaded with brood.

Anyway...my questions.. I went in yesterday and reversed the hives. The queen was in the second super, so I got her back below. I moved some outer frames that weren't drawn from the outside of the supers to inbetween busy frames to stimulate more construction. My concern is the 2 open Queen cells that I found at the bottom of a couple of frames. They were open from the bottom.. Queen is present, laying in tight patterns and there is plenty of room...Comments appreciated.

[Kathyp]

moving the frames is helpful sometimes.  it can give more room for brood and get them draw out faster.  switching boxes, in my opinion is very rarely called for.  if the queen has a preference for the top box, so what?  the idea is to give her plenty of room to lay.   where she does that should not matter.  switching boxes is quite disruptive and rarely accomplishes what is intended. 

that said, there are times when switching is worth a try.  i have done it when i have found a lower super ignored while the upper is honey bound.  in that case, switching the supers and redistributing the frames was helpful.  the idea was to open the center, rather than force the queen up or down.

[Greg Peck]

Welcome to the forum. You say you saw open queen cells on the bottom of some frames. Was there anything in the cells? Eggs or larva? You will find that bees will make queen cups at the bottom of frames and some time elsewhere. They may never actually use them for queen rearing but they are kind of there if they need them. You dont have to worry about them unless they have eggs in them or larva. Even then there is much debate with what to do with them. Different circumstances call for different action.

[wharfrat]

Thanks for the replies. The Queen cells look just like a peanut with a little opening at the bottom. I had assumed this meant that a Queens had already hatched. Perhaps they were just built and never used. I didn't tear them off, and don't know if there was actually anything inside of them.

[Greg Peck]

If it looks like a peanut in the shell and is say one inch long with a hole at the bottom then it sounds like you either one just emerged or they are about to cap it. Try to look down in the hole to see if you can see the larva. A queen cup is normally around 1/4 inch deep and round. Kind of looks like some one pushed a pea sized ball in to the wax and left a cup.

Hear is a pic of a capped Q cell

^{This is not my photo}