Bee Queen Cell Guide: Identify, Manage, & Use

Beekeeping, practiced across regions like Piedmont, Italy, often necessitates a keen understanding of colony dynamics. A strong colony exhibits specific behaviors, and understanding these behaviors is crucial for a beekeeper. Experienced beekeepers understand that colony success hinges on a healthy queen, so recognizing the signs of queenlessness or the impulse to swarm is important for a colony’s survival. The National Bee Association’s guidelines emphasize the importance of regular hive inspections, where the observation of a bee queen cell is a pivotal event, potentially indicating swarming, supersedure, or emergency queen rearing, all necessitating informed intervention to maintain a thriving apiary.

Decoding the Language of Queen Cells: A Beekeeper’s Handbook

Understanding bee queen cells is essential for successful beekeeping. They are the key to colony health, swarming behavior, and the potential for expanding your apiary. This guide will equip you with the knowledge to confidently identify, manage, and utilize these fascinating structures.

Identifying Queen Cells: What to Look For

Queen cells are visually distinct from regular worker or drone cells. Their unique appearance indicates a significant event is unfolding within the hive.

• Shape and Size: Queen cells are larger, peanut-shaped structures. They hang vertically from the bottom or sides of the brood comb, rather than lying horizontally within the comb’s hexagonal pattern.

• Location Matters:

  • Swarming Cells: Often found along the bottom edge of frames. These usually appear in multiple numbers as the bees are preparing to swarm.
  • Supersedure Cells: Typically located in the middle of the frame, and often only a few are present. This suggests the colony is replacing an aging or failing queen.
  • Emergency Cells: These are modified worker cells, hastily converted when a queen is lost unexpectedly. They will be found on the face of the comb and have a rougher, less polished appearance.

• Cell Appearance: Queen cells are often capped with a bumpy, wrinkled texture. The size and shape of the cell may also vary slightly depending on the race of the bees.

Understanding the Purpose of Queen Cells

Queen cells serve three primary purposes:

1. Swarming: This is the colony’s natural method of reproduction. When a hive becomes overcrowded, or resources are abundant, the bees will raise new queens. The old queen leaves with a swarm of bees, while a virgin queen remains to take over the hive.
2. Supersedure: When a queen ages, becomes injured, or fails to produce adequate pheromones, the bees will initiate supersedure. They raise a new queen to replace the existing one without swarming.
3. Emergency Replacement: If the queen suddenly dies or is removed, the bees will quickly convert existing worker larvae into queen larvae. These emergency queen cells are a last-ditch effort to save the colony.

Managing Queen Cells: Strategic Decision-Making

How you manage queen cells depends on your beekeeping goals. Different scenarios call for different actions.

• Preventing Swarming: If you want to prevent swarming, you can remove queen cells. However, this requires frequent hive inspections (every 7-10 days during swarm season) and can be stressful for the bees. Another option is to split the hive proactively, creating a new colony.

• Allowing Swarming: If you’re prepared to manage swarms, you can let the bees swarm naturally. Provide swarm traps in the vicinity of your hives to capture the swarms.

• Encouraging Supersedure: In some cases, supersedure is a sign of a healthy, self-regulating colony. If you see a few well-formed supersedure cells, it’s often best to let nature take its course.

• Splitting Hives: Queen cells are invaluable for creating new colonies. You can split a hive with queen cells, ensuring that each new colony has the potential to become queenright. This is a reliable way to expand your apiary.

Utilizing Queen Cells: Propagating Healthy Colonies

Queen cells offer valuable opportunities for colony management and expansion:

1. Queen Rearing: Skilled beekeepers can graft larvae into artificial queen cups to rear specific queen lines with desirable traits like disease resistance or gentle temperament.

2. Introducing to Queenless Hives: A ripe (ready to hatch) queen cell can be carefully introduced to a queenless colony. Protecting the queen cell with a queen cell protector is important to prevent the bees from destroying it.

3. Queen Banking: Queen cells can be temporarily stored in a queen bank – a strong, queenright colony – to delay hatching or hold them until needed.

4. Making Nucs: By combining frames of bees, brood, and a queen cell, you can create nucleus colonies (nucs). These smaller colonies are perfect for starting new hives or strengthening weaker ones.

Queen Cell Development Stages

Stage	Description	Timing (approximate)
Egg Laying	The queen lays a fertilized egg in a queen cup (either natural or built over a worker cell).	Day 0
Larval Stage	The egg hatches into a larva, which is fed royal jelly continuously by nurse bees. This is a period of rapid growth.	Day 3-8
Pupal Stage	The larva spins a cocoon and pupates within the cell. During this stage, the bee undergoes metamorphosis.	Day 8-16
Capped Queen Cell	The bees cap the queen cell with a waxy covering.	Day 8
Emergence	The virgin queen chews her way out of the cell.	Day 16

Understanding the stages of queen cell development allows you to predict when a queen will emerge and plan your beekeeping activities accordingly. Inspect cells carefully, especially before moving or manipulating frames, to avoid damaging the developing queen.

So, whether you’re a seasoned beekeeper or just starting out, hopefully this guide has given you a clearer understanding of the bee queen cell – how to identify them, what to do when you find them, and even how to use them to your advantage. Happy beekeeping!