Apidea query

[Bridget]

Stacks of stores and not much room to lay so took out one of the store frames and gave her an empty frame. This apidea had a previous queen that disapeared leaving some chalk brood behind. On inspection of the store frame I could see eggs laid on top of the sunken sealed chalkbrood. Is this common if the Queen runs out of space? Should I be thinking of moving her to a Nuc? I would prefer to wait another week as I don't have many young bees due to supercedures . It's been about 4 weeks since she emerged?

[Jon]

If you have not already done so you could remove the feeder and put in 2 more frames to give the queen more room to lay, preferably frames with comb already drawn. I have never seen a queen lay eggs on top of chalkbrood mummies. Usually a cell has to be spotless before a queen will go near it.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Jon, my lovely new Irish queen lay some eggs in a few cells half-filled with pollen - but I think she was also short of space. I put a new drawn comb in the nucleus, but the bees have almost filled it by the time she emerged from her cage. Kitta

[Mellifera Crofter]

No, one of my other new queens also laid some eggs on pollen and she had loads of space - but at least it's pollen, and not chalk brood as with Bridget's queen.
Kitta

[honeylover]

Hi Bridget,

I treat an Apidea as a 'mating nuc' only, in other words as soon as the new Q has proved herself I place her in a more conducive environment, I would not keep her any longer than absolutely necessary in an Apidea, if the cells have anything except pollen and honey in them, I discard the frame. The bees will draw out the fresh foundation pdq if they have a Q who is ready to lay. My thoughts, others may differ.

HL

[busybeephilip]

I've never ever seen queens laying in cells containing pollen - very strange

Any chance of showing us a picture

[Mellifera Crofter]

Neither have I, BB Philip, until a few days ago and then again today, but a different and unrelated queen.

I'll try to keep a camera handy next time.
Kitta

[Bridget]

Jon - I don't have that sort of feeder in the apidea. It's at right angles to the frames.
Thought I might have been imagining things Kitta, glad you've seen it too.
If the weather is better tomorrow ( can't believe it will be worse) I will see if she has started to lay in the empty frame . I agree it's time to move her to a nucleus but I don't have a lot of young bees. I will give that a go at the weekend. Thanks to all.

[Bridget]

Picture of the eggs laid on top of pollen as mentioned earlier. Same queen but she is now in a nucleus.



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[HJBee]

Oh dear