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Do workers move eggs – evidence!

Can bees can move eggs around a colony? It’s often a subject of debate.

Until this weekend, I had never seen any convincing evidence of it, but then I saw this as I was extracting the spring harvest:

 

Even though a clearer board had persuaded nearly all the bees to leave for the super and brood box below, some persistent bees stayed on. On an adjacent frame I found a smattering of drone brood — and then the queen cell on this frame.

Was it just a play cup taken a bit too seriously or was there anything in it?

There she was! A developing queen pupa.

I can’t be certain which colony the super had come from, but I knew for certain the apiary and that only one colony was appeared to be in queen-cell making mode. The queen had been removed to another box, so I must assume that after her removal the bees decided to move an egg up into the super and make it into a queen. When the queen was in the hive, a queen excluder had been in place.

Turlough
Vita’s Guest Beekeeper Blogger

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