Disclaimer:

This blog explains how I keep bees. It works for me, it might not work for you. Use my methods at your own risk. Always wear protective clothing and use a smoker when working bees.

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Saturday, June 4, 2011

Swarm Cells


This is what typical swarms cells look like. Peanut shaped, usually on the bottom of a frame but not always. When the queen cells are capped, the bees swarm with the old queen. This is why the 10 day swarm cell inspection is important. With this schedule swarm cells can be scraped off before they are capped. If the bees swarm and there are just queen cells hanging there, installing a new queen will get the bees going again much faster than waiting for a queen to be mated and start laying eggs.
Notice the cells with the cappings sticking out away from the frame. Those are capped drone cells.