John Horton wrote:
>More info on this would be appreciated as I have never personally observed
it. this isnt a challenge, simply a desire to become a more informed beekeeper.


Oof. I guess we've been a bit argumentative as of late, I supposed I
deserved that.

Moving along, when a hive makes preparations to swarm, one sees a lot of
things that aren't described in the basic books. In fact, if you keep bees
by the  book, one is apt to not see many of the more interesting things
because one is not looking for them. 

According to the book, bees raise cells in preparation to swarm, the swarm
goes, one virgin kills the others, takes over, and the hive settles back
down. So we're supposed to cut the queen cells and prevent swarming.

My first mentor told me that cutting queen cells was a waste of time because
they have already made up their mind to swarm at that point and all you do
is remove all the best cells (the most obvious ones) only to miss some
crummy little cell in a corner somewhere which goes on to be the new queen. 

Fact is, many hives which prepare to swarm, do not actually swarm. But back
to our topic, imprisoned queens. I have seen these in various states. As you
know, the queen chews her way out of the cell. Sometimes she will crawl back
inside looking for something to eat (the little nut of royal jelly in
there). The bees may add wax to the end of the cell to prevent her from
hatching or occasionally they will seal it back up after she crawls in there.

I think it makes perfect sense for the bees to hold some queens while the
earlier ones duke it out for the top position, because they may kill each
other. Also, virgins are frequently lost on mating flights. So the question
remains: why don't all hives keep spare queens trapped in this way? And,
yes, occasionally they are kept locked up too long and starve to death. 

This and more will be described in my book, "A lifetime with the bees". If I
ever write one.  ; )

Pete

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