Hi all
Here are some excerpts from an ongoing conversation we are having upstate NY

ME:
There is widespread misconception about the nature of queen cells in a colony of bees. I have said that you can't really tell by looking whether a given colony is building queen cells to swarm or to replace their queen. Further, they may do one thing or another, no matter what their original "intention." This evening I dug up a little corroboration for that point of view

> unless the bees are allowed to complete the process which they have started, there does not appear to be any way of distinguishing certainly between a colony which is rearing queens in the course of supersedure and one which is doing so preparatory to swarming, although beekeeping experience suggests that if only a small number of queens are being reared (say i-5) it can fairly safely be assumed that swarming will not occur. Unfortunately the interrelationships between the processes of queen supersedure and swarming are still far from clear.

THE PROCESS OF QUEEN SUPERSEDURE IN COLONIES OF HONEYBEES (APIS MELLIFERA LINN.)
C. G. BUTLER (Bee Research Department, Rothamsted Experimental Station.)

QUESTION: if a hive made queen cells with the intention to swarm, but then the over-crowded conditions are alleviated before any new queens hatch out, is the hive likely to swarm anyway, or will the hive more likely treat it as a supersedure? I realize there's no way to predict a hive's behavior with complete accuracy, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. 

ME:
In the old days beekeepers would spend hundreds of hours cutting out queen cells in hopes of preventing swarming. They finally realized that it doesn't work. In fact, back in 1974 my mentor gave me the best reason NOT to cut out queen cells. He said you will go through and cut out all the big nice ones, but you will miss some runty little cell in some remote corner of the hive -- and that will be the next queen in that hive. 

Anyway, it appears that the swarming impulse causes cells to be built, not the other way around. So they are a symptom that the hive is "thinking" about swarming and may have already "decided". Often, however, colonies change their plans, tear down cells, and not swarm, especially if the weather gets bad. Then they may swarm out on the first nice day, queen cells or not. I mean, the hive can raise queens from larvae for at least four days after the swarm departs.

Nobody is glad to see a prime swarm go, but it is part of nature. We raise our babies up and then watch them leave the nest! Life is like that

Pete

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