First inspection, big burr comb has 5 cells with multiple eggs

[Cold Bees]

Hi,

New to beekeeping, just hived our first package last week.  Snowy, cold weather since has kept us out of the hive for a week.  When we finally got a look today, we found a good chunk of burr comb in the opening between frames made by the queen cage.  My daughter noticed that of the many cells, most had an egg at the bottom, 4 had 2 eggs in them.  The queen cage was empty, though we did not find her and did not want to spend more than 10 minutes in there looking.  The workers are all over 4 frames, and half of one side of two the frames are drawn out or in process. 

So, should we worry or does this happen with new queens?

[Stingtarget]

If it's burr comb which commonly happens to the space created by the queen cage, it can be removed.  I would highly recommend finding the queen first or at least find a nice patch of brood / eggs that indicate she is still around.  Multiple eggs in cells may indicate a laying worker which would mean your queen has disappeared or is unmated.  With the cold weather it may be as simple as she's not laying yet.

[thegolfpsycho]

Give her a little time.  A fresh queen sometimes deposits more than one egg to a cell when she is gearing up.  I wouldn't panic yet.  Give her a chance to get her rythum.

[Michael Bush]

Doubles don't worry me with a new queen.  With an older queen it worries me because she may have run out of room.

[KONASDAD]

I came across the same thing about a month ago. MB is right. A virgin queen will lay doubles soemtimes, and new queens on undrawn foundation dont have enough cells so they double lay. Look to see where they are attached to the cell. If the eggs are joined together and at the very bottom, their queen eggs. If they are attached on the sides and are "less" organized"  or scatterred around the cell sides, you have a laying worker.

[Robo]

I hope you removed the burr comb and pushed the frames tightly together.   You should never leave a space between frames or they will draw burr comb, especially new installed packages.   

I wouldn't be too concerned with the queen at this time,  she will most likely settle down.  Just keep an eye on it.

[Cold Bees]

Robo, Konasdad,

Thanks for the advice. The eggs were on the bottom of the burr comb.  Yes, I went in to the hive to get the queen cage out and remove the burr comb, as per my local bee-keeping club school advice and my readings.  I pushed the frames together after taking a look at the center 2 frames.  The bees are working on the 4 central frames.  The burr comb was pretty large in a week's time, given that we were in a spring time snow-cold spell. 

I really, really like the guidance in Beekeeping for Dummies, but the book made no allowance for young queens, multiple eggs per cell means laying workers period in that book.  So I panicked, but I am really glad to have this incredible resource here.

[Robo]

The burr comb was pretty large in a week's time, given that we were in a spring time snow-cold spell. 

Ya, that's the bad part of it.  All that bee effort wasted that could have been used to draw foundation.  Leaving frames spaced for the queen cage seems the be a mistake that too many beginners make, mainly because of all the poor instructions/examples out there.

[Cold Bees]

Robo,

Well, how would you place the queen cage without separating the frames?  At someone's blog I read that they used one end of the wall frames, and that was a mistake.

[Shizzell]

Cold bees, I have that book as well. Its GREAT for beginning and learning the terminology, etc. However, there are millions of different ways beekeeping. Everyone has to develop their own technique. I also found out that reading this forum instead of the book, started to change my view on things. I began to stop worrying.

About introducing a queen. I always take the cage, open it up, and set it at the entrance. I haven't had one queen that hasn't been accepted because of how I introduced it.

Jake

[Cold Bees]

Shizzel

No way!!  8-)  At the entrance.  Outside the hive?  or just within the hive?

That leads me to ask some more.  So the queen I received with the package did not have any candy below the cork.  I was told to yank the cork, stuff in a marshmallow and then do what I did.  It made me suspicious, though.  I assume an experienced beekeeper would have been able to tell that the queen was accepted already and just introduce her without any restraint?

[Shizzell]

If this is a new hive from like a package, just take out of the cork, slide the cage slightly inside (with the cork opening pointing inside) and thats that. If its an experienced hive, and you are replacing a queen, I would use a marshmellow. Or, if the hive is experienced and you lost a queen and it is raising a new queen and you want to introduce one to save time, use a marshmellow. If it is a experienced hive, and it hasn't had a queen in a while, and it has no ability to raise a new queen (with eggs) then I would just take the cork out. There is always the chance that the queen won't eat through the marshmellow or die in the cage trying to get out. General rule of thumb, if you feel the hive is irritated or mad, use a marshmellow. If not, don't use one.

Wow that was a lot of talk about using marshmellows or not.

 :-D

Jake

[Robo]

Robo,

Well, how would you place the queen cage without separating the frames?  At someone's blog I read that they used one end of the wall frames, and that was a mistake.

If you are installing it into a hive with just foundation (the case where they WILL make burr comb).  Tie a string or wire to the cage and suspend the cage down below the frame top bars so that you can keep the frames tight together.  I have also set queen cages on top of the frame bars under the inner cover.   

You can most of the time get away with direct releasing the queen with packages, as the bees have spent a couple days in transit and get use to the new queen.   

Or you can built yourself a queen release frame.