Frame Guide › Queen problems
Emergency Queen Cells: what it looks like on the frame
You rolled the queen ten days ago. This is the same colony now.
Several cells at once, out on the face of the comb, rebuilt from ordinary worker cells — and not an egg left anywhere. Swarm cells hang off the bottom bar of a booming hive; a supersedure is one or two cells raised calmly while the old queen still lays. Many cells plus no eggs plus a colony that just lost its queen means emergency.
Let them finish — check for eggs in about four weeks
They're already fixing it, and the fix takes time: about a week to cap, a week to emerge, then a mating flight and a few days before she lays — roughly a month before you'll see eggs. Opening the hive every few days to check is the main way beekeepers ruin this. If they'd had no young larvae to work with, that's when you'd give them a frame of eggs from another colony.
Easy to mistake for
- Swarm CellsEarly May · booming population, bees boiling out the front.
- Supersedure CellsNothing dramatic. The pattern has just gotten patchy lately.
- Laying WorkerA colony that's been loud and 'roary' for weeks. No calm hum.
Could you spot this with the lid off?
Read the Frame deals you 8 random frames. Say what you see, say what you'd do, and find out why. It's free and runs on your phone.
Drill queen problems → Mixed round (all 32 frames) →More queen problems
- Healthy Brood PatternJune · a strong colony, bees calm and covering the comb.
- Laying WorkerA colony that's been loud and 'roary' for weeks. No calm hum.
- Swarm CellsEarly May · booming population, bees boiling out the front.
- Supersedure CellsNothing dramatic. The pattern has just gotten patchy lately.
- Drone-Laying QueenQueen is present, but the brood looks bumpy and raised all over.
- Can't Find the QueenYou went through every frame twice and never saw the queen.
- New Queen Laying Double EggsThe queen you introduced started laying five days ago.
- Waiting on a Virgin QueenThis colony swarmed 16 days ago. No eggs, no larvae anywhere.
- Empty Queen CupsMid-April · the colony is building fast. Along the bottom bars you find these.
These frames are drawn to teach the pattern, and real frames vary. From The Alleman Apiary in Middletown, PA.