Queens

[1alley]

Ok, so we tried our hand at queen rearing and we are going to have capped queen cells in a couple of days to put in hives. In the mean time we bought a couple of hives from someone. The hives we bought had no queen last week but they had 2 capped queen cells in all 3. - The hives had swarmed before we bought them. So on Wednesday when I will have new queen cells, I will not know if these new hives need a queen or not. Ok so long story - sorry. Question - if we put queen cells in these colonies and they have queens will the workers break them down? Which will be fine I just don't want to disturb a new queen too much.

[Wally]

Yes, they will tear them down and possibly kill the new queen because of the disturbance. It is best to just wait for 2 weeks after the estimated time of the new queen emerging and look for eggs. You can make up a couple nucs or a queen castle with the cells and let them emerge. Then introduce if needed, make new hives if wanted, or recombine if desired.

[1alley]

Thanks Wally.

If anyone needs any queen cells I'm going to have some extra ones on Wednesday. Just let me know.

[WannaBee1]

I'm just going to have to say how much I appreciate, and how lucky we are as members of GCBA, to have Master Beekeeper Wally Swaim as a member of our club. Thank you, Wally!