Jon
Supersedure
by
, 20-07-2013 at 07:08 PM (4681 Views)
saw a classic supersedure situation today with a queen of mine in her 4th season.
This colony tried to supersede last August but I inadvertently captured the daughter in an apidea when she made a pit stop with her mating swarm on a fence post. This was apiary vicinity mating. At the time I could not work out where the stray queen had come from but I found an opened supersedure cell in this same colony the next day.
The old queen overwintered anyway but the colony started weak and has only got up to strength for July.
I hadn't looked in it for about 3 weeks.
Today I saw an open supersedure cell on the second frame I lifted out, a shallow where they had drawn drone comb below the bottom bar. The supersedure cell was at the junction of the two.
The old queen, marked and clipped was on the fifth frame and the new queen was on the last frame. She may have already been mated as she was bigger than her mother and walking more like a mated queen than a virgin.
I took an executive decision to remove the old queen as I have not taken many grafts from her and she could have been bumped off at any time. I put her in a nuc with a couple of frames of bees and brood and moved her to another apiary. I will take a few grafts next week.