Identifying different types of cells?

[harvey]

Good Morning all and thanks for all the information so far.  I just went down and checked my hive.  I have two brood boxes.  Bottom was from a good swarm top one I had put a small swarm in and tried to combine the two.  This morning there were no bees in the top box at all.  There was a small hole in the newspaper between the two boxes and I did have a top entrance also.  Bottom box had a lot of bees in it.

I pulled a couple of frames and looked at them.  I did not brush the bees off though.  I did see quite a few cells that looked like they were covered in light brown cardboard?  They are still drawing comb on some of the frames not quite done with that on the bottom.  I took two frames that had bees working on them and put them in the top box and put two empty frames in the bottom.

So far so good right?     Now:  How do I tell the difference between drone cones, worker cones and queens cells?   I plan on leaving the hive alone for a couple of weeks now as I have been in and out of it three times in the past week.    Before I closed it up this time I sprayed the new frames with a 1:1 sugar mixture to maybe entice the bees onto the new frames?   

How am I doing so far?

[JP]

Capped worker cells on the left, queen cells in the middle, capped drone cells on the right. Notice how the drone cells are more pronounced and more bullet shaped.


...JP

[Kathyp]

http://bdtowle.com/beekeeping/images/comb2.med.jpg

did the cardboard looking cells look like this?  the could be a darker color.  this is capped honey.

[Highlandsfreedom]

Your doing GREAT!!  :-D  It sounds like you know what your doing too.  The cardboard looking wax is capped brood.  That's exactly what I did too was move a frame (or 2) up to the next box with the nurse bees still on them.... After I did that I went back in a week and WOW they had drawn out 3 more frames of brood and I saw the queen up in the top box making baby's!! :-D  Did you remove the paper between the boxes if you did GREAT if not take care of that.  The difference of cells is easy..... what you saw that looked like cardboard was indeed worker cells after a while you will see some cells that look like bullets (they will be sticking up about a 1/8 inch more than the other cells they are droan cells and you cant miss the queen cell it looks like a peanut!! 8-)  You should be fine leaving them alone for a few weeks plus spraying the frames with sugar water should be fine they did it on their own when I moved up one of their frames.  

Again you are doing GREAT!!!
Isn't beekeeping FUN!!!!!!

[harvey]

Thanks again all,  so far yes beekeeping is fun!  If I can get this hive off the ground and able to survive the winter it will be realy great.  I have not considered any type of treatments for beatles or mites yet.  most people have told me to hold off for a while and see what happens.  so far the bee's have been real decent with me (no stings).   I might have lost the little swarm that I caught cause yesterday they were all over that top box and today the top box was empty but there are still a lot of bees in the bottom box.  Only about half of the frames in the bottom were packed with bees but there were bee's on all the frames.  Wish me luck. 

[Highlandsfreedom]

Good Luck!!!!!!!!!!!! :-D