Queen cell and eggs

After about two weeks it was time to look for eggs and larva in my 2015 summer nucs. I was a bit surprised by one of the nucs. There was lots of eggs and tiny larva as one would expect after a week or so with their new queen, no surprise there. What did surprise me was the two queen cells. I saw the queen, she is a beauty, so I can only guess they got busy with eggs before the queen escaped from her cage. Not being one to waste a good opportunity to help a different nuc, I cut the capped queen cell from the frame and added it to a nuc that didn’t have eggs although I saw the queen. Gladiator style beekeeping!

The other queen cell has not been capped so I plan to give it a day and make a nuc from it. Free queens are good queens. If you look carefully there are eggs around the queen cell.

Note the eggs next to the queen cell

Note the eggs next to the queen cell