For the less experienced amongst us .....

[gavin]

Here's a wee query. And I know that I'll not be able to stop the more experienced chipping in, but let's give this a go anyway. Chip in whoever you are. Something you might see in a year such as this. I saw it last weekend and this is what it looks like on my phone camera.

What is going on, and what should I have done?

[kevboab]

Is that a pic of a frame out of a nuc by any chance ???

[gavin]

No, it was in a full-sized box but it probably should have been in a nuc box as it was about half a box of bees. A split from a queen cell raising colony at the end of May.

[HJBee]

Is that an emergency cell in amongst drone size cells in the middle of the frame?

[Jimbo]

I'll wait before posting my reply as I have something similar

[gavin]

Yes! Two emergency (or possibly attempted supercedure) cells, one sealed and one open. A central patch of drone brood when the other splits created at the same time were romping away with mostly worker brood and some small patches of drone. This colony had no worker brood at all, and no eggs.

As you can see there is a nice, large cleared area for laying - created by workers optimistic about a new queen. They laid in plenty of pollen around it but have now decided to preserve it by overlaying a little honey.

So, what is happening - and what should the beekeeper have done? What I did isn't necessarily the best or only answer of course.

[gavin]

Notable that the pollen is all round the brood nest. This is supposed to be an Amm trait but the colony isn't pure Amm. Not relevant to the questions above, but I thought that I'd throw that in.

G.

[gavin]

Is that an emergency cell in amongst drone size cells in the middle of the frame?

Considering this poster had been a beekeeper for only a couple of hours at the time of posting, I think that they deserve special congratulation.

[HJBee]

Which I would nicely deflect to say that I attribute that to an excellent mentor and local association with a lot of excellent Beekeepers happy to educate. 😊

Now to the task of what should be done. Can't make out if the Emergency Cell is new or if it has hatched out. Can you give a hint and I'll have a go at next steps.

[kevboab]

At this time of year I would probably be happy to just cull and unite if I didn't have a spare queen sitting around in an apidea. Times getting on and weather still dreich.