Bee-listers :
I am taking some bees out of a wall with the bait hive and metal screen
funnel technique. The bait hive is a 3 frame Nuc with laying queen.
It has been a week and a half since I started and the single brood chamber
is wall to wall bees with the new hivekeepers.
I examined the hive today and noted 3 queen cells in the middle of the
brood pattern. I have learned that these are superceedure cells. Swarm
cells are at the bottom of the frames.
I had a decision to make - Remove the queen cells or kill the old queen and
leave one queen cell to hatch. I chose to remove the queen cells and keep
the old queen laying.
I also added a super to give the hive more room.
My question is.... should I have killed the old queen and let the bees
raise a new queen, hoping they woudl not swarm due to cramped quarters from
the transitioning bees.
BTW I have been keeping bees for 25 years and still have questions. :)
Paul Cronshaw DC
Cyberchiro and Hobby beekeeper
Santa Barbara, CA