r/Beekeeping Wiki

Queen Events FAQ

There’s lots of questions around how to get things right - here are some answers

Questions

TODO: Answer these questions

Answers

Are these queen cells?

If the cells are positioned horizontally, no. If the cell is positioned vertically, yes. Here’s an example a good looking queen cell.

Image showing queen cells on the bottom of a frame

Determining whether these are swarm cells, supersedure cells, or emergency cells is the next step. You can head over to the Spotting Queen Events page for this.

Is this a swarm/supersedure/emergency cell?

Good question. Maybe have a quick visit to the above question just to be sure it’s a queen cell - if it is, head to our Spotting Queen Events page for more information.

Should I remove swarm cells?

Usually, yes. When you perform a split, or a manipulation, upon finding queen cells the usual answer is that you want to make the colony think they have swarmed. In our experience, leaving swarm cells inside a colony and letting them use them to raise a new queen in the split can sometimes result in a swarm regardless of your mothodology.

When you remove a queen from a colony to manage swarming impulse, force them to revert back to emergency cell raising by removing all queen cells - you’ll get much better results in doing this.

Warning: Only do this when you know with certainty that they have the resources to raise a queen cell in an emergency fashion - in particular, freshly laid eggs.

Also, read the next question too

Will deleting queen cells prevent a swarm?

No. Once the colony has decidede it’s going to leave, it’s going to leave come hell or high water. Removing queen cells is not going to manage swarming on it’s own. After you delete the first set of queen cells, you will find that the colony raises and rears queens from the remaining brood in a handful of days, and will still leave.

If you continually go back removing queen cells, the swarm will still leave, rendering the parent colony hopelessly queenless.

You must perform swarm control methods upon finding fully charged queen cells if you want to keep your bees in one place.