> From: Malcolm Roe <[log in to unmask]>
> I think much of this depends on the strain of bees.  In my experience
> of swarm preparations there are perhaps 2/3 of the cells on the bottom
> of the frames and 1/3 in the middle.  (Note, this is working with single
> brood boxs.)  Emergency cells (sudden loss of queen) of course are always
> on the face of the comb because a worker cell has been promoted.
 
        I've got two deeps so far and I have one medium to put on later
for honey, I'm figuring that they'll only fill one since they're a new
colony, but I could be wrong...8-}
 
> I must admit that when I read Dave's original query I wondered if he
> was seeing queen _cells_ or just queen _cups_.  Colonies, even neuclei,
> seem to always make queen cups in the summer, even if they have no
> desire to swarm.  Sometimes the queen even lays in them but the workers
> remove the eggs.  I wouldn't say that swarm preparations have really
> started until an egg has been allowed to hatch.
 
        So then I'm sort of ok? They were just cups, but the cup the the
middle threw me off. I've never seen one there and I don't remember reading
about them there either. But to be on the safe side I'm going to have the
guy I got them from come and check them and my hive management out.
        BTW, I don't know what kind of bees they are, I asked him one time
and he said, "They're honey bees" and smiled.
 
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Dave D. Cawley            |     The information on the Internet is only
University Of Scranton    |     interesting to people who are interested
Scranton, Pennsylvania    |     in it.
[log in to unmask]         |             -Scranton Tomorrow Spokeswoman
[log in to unmask]      |     refusing invitation to Internet Cafe's opening
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