a Steve Petrilli snip followed by > my comments 
For that matter, why does the queen lay eggs in supercedure cells when it means her demise?  Have you ever wondered who decides it is time to swarm, the queen, or the workers?

>Looks like Steve the Illinois yearly convention will coincide with the Texas Beekeeper's annual convention.  As to the above question a supercedure cell most often starts off as a worker cell.  Recently I have been looking real hard at queen cell cups (I sometimes call these 'dry queen cell cups) and have noticed that the opening of such cells are tapered down so the opening is no larger that the opening of a worker cell < I would guess this coincides with the idea the queen measures this opening to determine if she should deposit a fertilized or unfertilized egg.

Good luck on the convention and we (Dr Rangel and myself) will be doing a hands on queen rearing work shop at our convention in Texas.

Gene in central Texas...  

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html