Glossary
A small, acorn-shaped beeswax cup built on the face or bottom edge of a comb in which the colony can raise a new queen. Queen cups are common in healthy colonies and are not necessarily cause for alarm. They become significant when a queen lays an egg in them, at which point the bees may raise the larva into a new queen.
An empty queen cup is simply a wax structure, a piece of preparation that bees maintain as a standing option. Most healthy colonies have several empty queen cups at any given time. They are the colony's insurance policy: if the queen is suddenly lost, the bees need a cup ready to receive an emergency queen larva.
A queen cup becomes a queen cell when it contains an egg, larva, or is sealed (capped). Capped queen cells indicate that the colony is actively raising a new queen. The position of the queen cell helps indicate the reason: cells hanging from the bottom of frames suggest swarm preparation, while cells on the face of the comb suggest emergency queen replacement (supercedure).
Finding empty queen cups during an inspection requires no action. Finding occupied queen cups or developing queen cells requires evaluation. If the colony is strong and cells are on the bottom edge during spring, the colony is likely preparing to swarm. If cells are on the face of the comb, the colony may be superseding a failing queen.
Destroying queen cells without addressing the underlying cause (crowding, a failing queen) is generally ineffective; the bees will rebuild them. Better approaches include providing space (adding supers), splitting the colony, or allowing the supersedure to proceed if the old queen is indeed failing.
Empty queen cups should not be destroyed; they are normal and the bees will simply rebuild them. Occupied queen cells require evaluation of why the colony is building them (swarming, supersedure, or emergency) before deciding on a management response.
A healthy colony typically maintains 5 to 20 empty queen cups at any time. These are kept in a state of readiness and do not indicate imminent swarming or queen problems. Their presence is a sign of a well-functioning colony.
Beekeepers who raise queens typically use either natural queen cups from their colonies or commercially produced plastic queen cups. Grafting (transferring young larvae into queen cups) triggers the bees to raise those larvae as queens, which is the foundation of managed queen rearing.
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