Supersedure vs Swarming

[Neils]

Right,

it's caught me out again. I could have sworn that the swarm I hived earlier in the spring was superseding. All the signs were *right*, there were two cells mid comb. No sign of queen cells on the other combs.

Two weeks ago I saw the two cells and I deliberately removed them. Supersedure for sure I thought, but maybe they're being hasty. Last week they were back, in the same place, so I took out the queen on a frame of brood and stuck her in a Nuc with a frame of stores.

This week I go back, originally I was only going to recheck the two cells, so I had a look, remove one cell leaving the one I'd checked the week before, prepared to shut them up and go on my way. But the weather was nice, they're particularly nice bees and I couldn't resist. 3 brood frames in sealed queen cells, thousands of them (ok 6 per side). Now I'm going to swear that they weren't there last week, because I'd double checked then to make sure it wasn't swarming and none of the queen cells were tucked away in nooks and crannies.

I reduced that frame down to one queen cell and stuck it in another nuc to hedge my bets, they're nice bees so the opportunity to raise, potentially, another queen off them was too much to ignore.

Am I right to be counting my blessings that I'd removed the queen so therefore didn't lose a swarm?

Why, when I swear I had only two queen cells last week have I found another 14, in classic swarm positions at the bottom of the frame and all sealed which means I should have missed them on the last inspection?

Can I just not tell supersedure and swarming apart?

And if we assume I didn't just miss them on the previous inspection, what gives with the sudden appearance of 12 new (sealed) queen cells, they're a day too early at least.

[Neils]

Aaah knew I had it somewhere. This is what I saw the first time around:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5072/5853862400_5e61dd34b1_b.jpg

No other queen cells in the hive, just those two. That was the inspection that I removed them and left the queen in the colony.

[Jon]

Hi Neil.

Emergency queen cells are sealed in 4 days as they are started from a <24 hour old larva rather than an egg in a cup. same as grafting. If you remove a queen they will probably be induced to make more emergency cells as insurance. The original intent may well have been supersedure. Clipping a wing and inspecting at intervals of about 11 days covers your options.

Those two in the picture look more like swarm cells than supersedure cells to me. There is no hard and fast rule but supersedure cells are usually very pitted and not necessarily found in the middle of the frame.

[Neils]

Doh, good point. Maths fail. You can see why they pay me to design systems for banks :rolleyes:

I'm going to take it as supersedure and not feel too bad about it then on the basis that if it was swarming they'd almost certainly have made more than two cells to begin with and I'd have lost the queen in a swarm over that week which obviously didn't happen as she's sat quite happy in a Nuc Next door.

The Emergency queen cells makes sense to m. First week I removed the queen cells and they just made two again, second week I left the two cells there (they drew them straight back in the same place) and took the queen out instead and hey presto another frame has sealed queen cells the next week. That's now also sat in a nuc on the basis that it's a good chance to get another colony off this one this year.

[Jon]

Removing a queen takes away a lot of the stress as you know you can't, or shouldn't lose a swarm for over a week.
This is the first year I have clipped queens and it has taken away a lot of stress.
Roger Patterson always used to say that it is better to risk losing one bee through clipping than about 20,000 of them.
There are queens I definitely do not want to lose such as the ones I am grafting from so I am very careful about checking those ones weekly.

If in doubt, whick her out is the motto!