Emergency queen cell from a drone larvae?

[mikemilespitcairn]

During an inspection today we found an open emergency queen cell with a larvae amongst the drone cells of a drone frame in the top box of a demaree'd colony. There are some worker brood in the frame but the cells surrounding the QC look bigger than normal worker cells. Has it been known for bees to draw a QC from a drone cell containing a larvae of the appropriate age if nothing else is available. Sorry no pictures yet.

Mike

[Jon]

Yes, they will do that, but obviously it is not viable.
The same thing happens in colonies with a drone laying queen.

[Bridget]

We did a Demaree last week and found similar today when we inspected. To clarify Jon does that mean we have nothing to worry about? Just let things take their course?

[Jon]

I would remove it anyway just in case it is a worker larva in among drone larvae.

[Adam]

I agree with Jon - it should be removed just in case.

Here's a queencell amongst drones I prepared earlier - photographed last week. This was from a queen raising/demaree colony too - found in the bottom box after the queen went. I posted this a couple of days ago elsewhere. A large queen came out from the slightly darker 'bronzed' bit as shown arrowed once I poked it with my hive tool. As there was already an unexpected virgin in the hive I'm pleased I checked it or half of a large colony would have swarmed out.

https://sites.google.com/site/browstonbeefiles/_/rsrc/1339057075771/photo-gallery/Queencellamongstdrone.jpg

I caged the queen with some workers and left it in the house where it was warmer - She's now named Emma B after my son's girlfriend who wouldn't get within three feet of it once she knew what was there.

[mikemilespitcairn]

Hi Guys,

Thanks Jon and Adam. If the weather holds I'll sort it out today.It should be sealed by now if a true queen cell.

M

[Jon]

Adam.
That is a really good picture as many people argue that there was definitely no extra queen cell in the hive when it swarmed.
How many would spot that one? Not me I suspect.
You would only see one like that by shaking bees off frames and looking very carefully, and even then there is a fair chance it would be missed.
Roger Patterson has a good transparency of an emergency queen cell which must have been made with a 3 day old larva. It is so small it just looks like a raised drone cell but you can tell it is a queen cell by the colour of the tip.
I had a colony supersede last July and I never saw the cell. It was one I was grafting from and for a couple of weeks I never saw the marked and clipped queen only to be surprised by a larger one which was unclipped and unmarked.
there must have been a supesedure cell hidden somewhere and I was going through that colony at least twice a week or more looking for frames of small larvae to graft from.

[Adam]

I was quite surprised to see such a good queen come out of it. I was going through the stage of prodding anything that I thought 'might be a queencell' when I came across that one.

I do miss them though.
A week or so ago one colony was queenless and I put in a pulled queen from the good hive in the apiary. I slipped her in a butler cage and as there was a lump of wax handy, I used that to seal up the end. (Never used wax before). She went in the hive.
A few day later she was still in the cage. There was a hole in the wax so bees could get in (it was full of workers) bus she was at the back of the cage - almost as if she was being held in. I checked for queeencells in the hive, removed them - grotty ones on an outside frame and let her out. The colony swarmed a day or two later and I collected them.
In the hive was one crappy queencell buried in manky comb at the bottom of a frame. It didn't look like a queencell at all as I damaged it with my hive tool.... :(