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walkhighlands
20-05-2014, 05:31 PM
Looking for advice!

I've a colony where some of the cells with eggs have multiple eggs in the cell - around a quarter or a fifth of the cells with eggs have more than 1. The colony also has a bit of a messy brood pattern with scattered drones - but still much more worker brood than drone brood.

The queen is still present in the hive as we saw her - she was a new queen raised last year.

There was also an unsealed queen cell with larva, which (I think unfortunately) we tore down as the first one seen - but I'm now guessing this may have been a supercedure cell for a failing queen?

I'm guessing I haven't got laying workers... but what is the best advice from here?

Jon
20-05-2014, 08:47 PM
They will make another supersedure cell right away if they want to change her.
The other option is to get another queen and replace her now.

drumgerry
20-05-2014, 09:06 PM
Paul and Helen of Walkhighlands are friends of mine and I've offered them a sealed queen cell (all getting sealed tomorrow)from my latest round of grafts if they want one!

But on the question of multiple eggs in cells - I've found it's not uncommon to see them with perfectly healthy queens. Not to anything near the extent of 25% of the brood but scattered here and there. And if you see a few cells like that not to assume it's a failing queen. Not sure if it's a question of room or something else but it's something I've found that sorts itself out sometimes. But clearly with 25% of cells with multiple eggs we're talking something different in this case.

walkhighlands
28-05-2014, 04:43 PM
Thanks for the replies.

Just to update this, at the following inspection there didn't seem to be any cells with multiple eggs anymore (nor any more queen cells). The comb is still a bit messy with scattered drones but it seems the queen may have just had some sort of dodgy spell!