The end of the season was approaching and clearer boards were being placed, ready for super removal.
On one hive (#4)earlier in the season I had lost the queen and, despite their best efforts, the colony ended up queen-less (maybe a bit to do with me too). Forward to a few weeks later where a section of brood from a very nice colony (#3) had been inserted and a queen cell was produced - so I left them to it.
Back to the near present. The clearer board was on and I was all ready to take off the super. I opened the lid and the bees hadn’t cleared!! It look suspiciously like they were not prepared to move down, so knowing they were in need, I took the clearer board off and left them to it.
Cut to a recent inspection where I was curious about the super, so that was the first thing I checked. I was doubly curious because a number of the frames had been cut out (used for cut comb) and so the bees were unlikely to use them without building them up, and at this time of year that would be the last thing they would do.
Starting with the centre frames I took one out. There on a super frame was a beautiful hatched queen cell!! Ah 🤔 That’s why they were reluctant to go down into the brood chamber. On an adjacent frame was a beautiful native dark queen - laying!! (What looked like worker brood. )
What did I do? It’s obvious - I removed the Queen excluder and put the super back on top hoping the queen would return to the brood chamber. It was only some time later that I thought there could also be another queen in the brood chamber (didn’t check🤦🏼♂️).
So a number of unanswered questions arise (answers on a postcard):
- Why did the bees move a worker egg (actually there were two qc’s) up into the super and build a queen cell up there?
- How did the ‘super’ queen get mated?
- Was there another queen in the brood chamber?
- Will the colony survive?
Watch this space for updates peeps.
Mikey B.
