supercedure cells with new packages of bees

tspork · Unread post by **tspork** » May 8th, 2003, 1:05 pm

I installed two packages and the queens were released in two days. I reinspected both hives 7 days later and both queens are laying eggs. To my surprise I found at least 6 supercedure cells developed without eggs. This is the first time I have ever observed this. I removed the suoercedure cells and closed up the hives.

Four days later I reinspected those two hives ;
found the queens,
found eggs,
and four supercedure cells in each hive.

I have checked my notes from pervious years and never came across this situation before.

Should I be concern of weak queens?
or just inexperience?

Tim

Tim · Unread post by **Tim** » May 8th, 2003, 4:45 pm

If there are no eggs in them, this is perfectly natural. You can go through any mature hive and find those empty starter queen cells. The bees start them just to have some on hand for an emergency.

With new queens sometimes they make reall supercedure cells because something is wrong with the queen.