From: Tom Martin
> This is my reason for writing. The cell was empty. What would cause
> this?

Others have talked about this before, but I like to add a recent experience. I raise queens for sale, and produce about 150 cells/ week. We have had very rainy summer until 10 days ago when the weather cleared and nectar started to come in very well.  That week I gave  tp 6 cell builder colonies 2 sets of  75 started queen cells from a starter after 1 day in starter. They went in two sets. From the first all were eaten away little before they were supposed to be capped. The cells had long walls, masses of royal jelly and big larva in them. From the other set 1 hive rejected all cells, but the rest 2 colonies come up fine. One of the fine come from the only queenless cell builder.

The big upward change in incoming nectar made the bees to quit queen rearing.  It is quite normal for us to experience intensive honey flows, but this is the first time that I experienced myself that bees rejected started cells becouse of the flow.


Ari Seppälä
Finland

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