Early signs of an unfertilised queen?

[gavin]

I have a few of these this year. Disappointing. It has been - until recently - on the cold side so the early virgins may not have had the enjoyment they should have had. Extra royal jelly, thick rims to the cells, the area noticeably raised. Drone laying queen, no?

A few of the early queens made it, and others have only eggs so I'm crossing my fingers that they were fertilised in the warm weather in recent days.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/droney1.JPG

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/droney2.JPG

Or am I wrong? However there was a very fine common spotted orchid in front of the hives to brighten the already quite bright day.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/commspot.JPG

[Jon]

When a queen just starts to lay the first few cells get absolutely flooded with Royal jelly. Give that one a couple more days and things will be clear.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Gavin
Lovely orchid you might try and help the seed get a hold later.
A big patch of those would look great

Bees are looking very happy with themselves
The comb walls probably were thick already
Round the pollen they look pretty thick as well
I don't know much about it but I wouldn't be worried
Overnight rain here hope that's not the weather breaking

[Jon]

I would tend to agree DR. I think that is worker larvae in old comb with thickened walls. We'll find out in a couple of days.

[gavin]

Ah, that would be good, gents. I like being wrong sometimes. :)

The orchid (one of half a dozen or more of this species this year) will get to spread its seed around as the orchard owner has an SRDP grant to fund biodiversity-sympathetic management. There have been a couple of Dactylorhiza fuchsii in the last couple of years and a good handful of Dactylorhiza purpurella - from what seemed like zero a few years ago. Both species are also present on some of the A90 road flyovers nearby - nice to see them spreading.

[Adam]

The brood looks quite solid - I would be expecting to see some of the drones being removed soon if a DLQ. I've had some badly mated queens (too cold) and a couple of drone layers this year. The badly mated had a spotty brood pattern with lots of holes. It looked like the workers were trying to remove the drone eggs from the drone layer in a nuc - the pattern was quite patchy - almost like laying workers. Soon rectified with a new queen; a lot of the uncapped drone brood was removed as soon as she went in, so the comb is pretty good.

[Jon]

If the photo was taken on the 9th that brood will be getting capped tomorrow as those larvae are between 1-2 days old.
Keep us updated Gav, but I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

[Bumble]

Hope it's okay to add a question to this thread.

One of my colonies produced a new queen which should have started laying around the beginning of July. When I inspected 6th July there was a lovely brood pattern over 4 frames, but nothing was capped. Yesterday (12th) I found that much of the brood is drone, although there is a fair amount of worker in there too. It actually looks a bit of a mess, a hotchpotch of different cells. There's also a single uncapped queen cell, which I've left alone.

The comb wasn't newly drawn this year, but they've obviously altered the cells to accommodate all these drones. Would it be a good idea to give them a fresh start with new foundation so the new queen, when she appears, won't be tempted to lay too many drones in the existing cells?

It's too hot to disturb them again today to take a picture.

[gavin]

Keep us updated Gav, but I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Went through them today with half a dozen witnesses and yes indeed, I was pleasantly surprised! Its a goodie.

Sent from my BlackBerry 8520 using Tapatalk

[Jon]

Ye of little faith!

[gavin]

Me of little brain ....

[The Drone Ranger]

Hope it's okay to add a question to this thread.

One of my colonies produced a new queen which should have started laying around the beginning of July. When I inspected 6th July there was a lovely brood pattern over 4 frames, but nothing was capped. Yesterday (12th) I found that much of the brood is drone, although there is a fair amount of worker in there too. It actually looks a bit of a mess, a hotchpotch of different cells. There's also a single uncapped queen cell, which I've left alone.

The comb wasn't newly drawn this year, but they've obviously altered the cells to accommodate all these drones. Would it be a good idea to give them a fresh start with new foundation so the new queen, when she appears, won't be tempted to lay too many drones in the existing cells?

It's too hot to disturb them again today to take a picture.

I take it your plan is to leave the existing queen in the hive and let the queen cell develop normally ?
Is the queen cell in the middle of the comb ?

[Bumble]

Yes to both questions. It looks like the right position for a supersedure cell, so I thought it was best to let them get on with it.

I asked abot giving them some new frames because one of the old guys in the BKA here said I should get rid of the any comb with a high level of drone cells because it'll only encourage any new queen to lay drones. I don't know if it's a beekeeping myth.

I've never had a drone laying queen before, but there's this one and it looks as if the new queen in a split is the same - there's a lovely area of new brood but all the developing cells looks suspiciously high. They should be capped within the next couple of days, so I'll know for sure.

The same BKA guys are saying that this season's early drones were poor and, of course, the weather took a turn for the worse at about the time that these queens should have been taking their mating flights.

I was also thinking of selectively culling the drone brood, by scraping off the cappings, but I don't know if it's more trouble than it's worth and I'm not sure how much messing about they'll tolerate in these temperatures. (I'm not sure how long I want to be in a bee suit when it's already 27C!)

[The Drone Ranger]

I would be inclined to leave it as well
Getting comb drawn is sometimes not as easy as we would like
The wax making bees are normally a certain age and move on to other duties as they get older
I recently moved some combs around in a hive of old comb where a swarm took residence
By adding some foundation between the old combs I inadvertently separated a small patch of brood and they raised 2 supersedure cells
Because I knew the queen was there and laying I moved the cells elsewhere to be finished

So here's the thing before the cell appeared Had you been rearranging the brood combs or adding to the existing combs ?
Is the cell in the broodnest proper or out on the edge ?

If this is supersedure the new queen won't be laying for a long time yet so you can move any combs you don't like to the outside of the box before then
Meanwhile you can wait see what happens

Real swarms, the type you climb trees for, are programmed for wax building, so if you get one, give them foundation to draw, and trickle feed them because as soon as the food supply dwindles they stop making wax and become nectar gatherers Once that happens they don't go back to drawing wax

Most other circumstances they draw wax as they need it for storage or laying and sometimes they don't always keep up with demand
If your existing queen is messing up all the comb then you can only take her out, but your original post says there is normal brood as well, so again perhaps waiting is the best option

[Bumble]

Okay, I've got some pictures. I've got two colonies with what look like drone layers.

This one was a cast swarm. The weather was bad, so it looks as if she didn't mate properly. A small patch of brood only only a couple of frames.
1707 1708

The other one is strange.

This is the brood pattern. Mix of worker and drone, but not a good pattern and way too many drone cells.
1709

This is what I hope is a normal queen cell - this is the one I was planning to leave.
1710

But then there's this thing, which looks like an elongated drone cell. I've never seen anything like it before.
1711

I can't seem to upload the second picture of the inside of this cell.

[Bumble]

Second try to upload the missing picture. 1712

Got it! Maybe there were too many in the last post?

I'd appreciate some help. I left both cells in place, which was probably the wrong thing to do.

[Bumble]

Any thoughts about the tube-like cell?

[gavin]

Some workers said: 'Wey-hey, let's make a queen cell off this one!'

Some more came long. 'That's not right, its drone, but this is the right place to make a queen cup.'

'No, I want to carry on with my queen cell.'

''I'm making a blinking queen cup out of it, I tell you.'

Along comes a third. 'Oh, stuff the lot of you! Things are not right here. I'm scoffing whatever you've put in that cell.'

I have sometimes seen an elongated queen cup on the face of a frame, but can't really say whether or not that conversation took place!

[The Drone Ranger]

Have to say Bumble I don't know
Queen cells without the proper cell pattern on the outside are seldom good
The one on the face of the comb looks better than the long thin one
I am probably wrong but I would just leave that one it could be a supersedure cell
The other long one is not in the right position and looks all wrong for supersedure
Don't suppose you have spotted the queen yet by any chance ?

[Bumble]

I think you've probably been eavesdropping on my hive, Gavin! :)

DR - I'm fairly sure the half decent cell on the face of the frame is a supersedure cell. The other is a complete mystery. I'll see what they've been up to when I take a look tomorrow - haven't had a chance since I took the pictures.

No, I haven't seen the queen although she was still there because there were eggs in the right place within cells. I rarely do see them, but when I do I catch and mark them.

[The Drone Ranger]

I think it will work out ok Bumble
Queens that are exactly the same colour as the bees are harder to spot
Knowing there are eggs and that some brood is worker they could start other cells if they wanted to