In a message dated 4/27/98 9:29:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: << Today I look in the new hive (old queen) - most bees are all clustering (3/4 bees deep) on the two frames of brood. After a lot of looking I saw the old queen and a few eggs, larvae, and also ome more Q cells, some empty and one with a young larvae in ! Why ? I thought that doing this procedure would 'fool' the old queen and her mainly older bees that they had already swarmed. Any ideas ? Is this Queen failing perhaps ? >> It is possible that the queen is failing, and you mistook supercedure cells for swarm cells. Swarm cells are usually near or on the bottom of the frame, and there may be 10-20 of them. Supercedure cells usually are nearer the center (because they are drawn out from an ordinary cell, just like an emergency cell) and there are not usually many, sometimes only one. The other possibility is simply that they think they have already swarmed and they are now superceding the queen. Most swarms, once established, will replace the old queen that went with them. If they were truly swarmy, you did the right thing. Many hobbyists will cut out cells, thinking this will stop swarming. Tearing the hive apart every few days to find the cells demoralizes the hive, and, sooner or later, the beekeeper will miss one cell, usually a small one that makes a lousy queen. Once you've got a young queen established in either hive, you can recombine them, if you don't want the extra hive. [log in to unmask] Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles) http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm