Hello everyone,
 
I am really stumped with this one and was wondering if someone out there
might know the answer.
 
At the end of June I bought a number of Apidea mini-nucs (small
polysterene mating nuclei), fitted the frames with foundation and filled
the candy box with candy. I also stocked them with a cupful of young
nurse-bees in accordance with the manufacturers instructions. I was then
unable to get back to the apiary for some weeks (due to illness) and
assumed that the effort had been wasted. Well, I visited the apiary
yesterday and most of the mini-nucs had been robbed of their stores much
as I had expected. The thing that really suprised me, however, was that
one of them had a sealed queen cell in it and was well stocked with bees
and comb filled with honey. I have absolutely no idea how this can be
since they have not had access to a queen for at least a month and there
are no other eggs in the mini-nuc. Where did they get the egg to make a
queen-cell?
 
According to my queen rearing timetable; it takes 3 days for an egg to
hatch, 6 days in the larval stage, and then the queen cell is capped for
another 6 days during which time it grows from a pre-pupa to a pupa.
Consequently, the bees in this mini-nuc must have had access to an egg
within the last 9 - 15 days but I do not see how. The only way that I
can think that they might have got an egg is that they "stole" it from
another colony in much the same way that ants steal eggs from rival
colonies. Does anyone have any experience, or opinion, of this?
 
I have left the mini-nuc as I found it so I may yet get a queen emerge
from it.
--
Paul Walton
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Toddington, Bedfordshire, England.
Tel. +44 (0)1525 875570