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| Transfering larvae into queen cells, this is the first step for royal jelly production (the same as large scale queen rearing). Beijing, China. May 13, 2001. Viewed: 4439 times. |
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| Workers taking care of a queen cell, the white larva can be seen partially. Viewed: 4735 times. |
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| When the queen is removed or killed in a colony, workers will change worker cells into 'emergency queen cells'. These cells may not have the best quality. THe five cells here are all pretty small, for example, perhaps because workers did not use the youngest larvae available. May 30, 2003. Viewed: 3317 times. |
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| Here you see the 'queen' pupa is not that much bigger than the worker pupa, because the larva used for emergency cell was already too old. May 30, 2003. Viewed: 2891 times. |
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| A queen cell near the edge of a frame. A worker has most of her body inside to either inspect or feed the queen larva. Viewed: 4363 times. |
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| When a very young queen cell was opened to expose the larva and the creamy food (royal jelly), workers come to eat the jelly. Viewed: 4026 times. |
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| A queen cell in the center of the nest. This is usually a supercedure cell -- when the queen is getting too old workers rear a new one to replace her. When this happens, the two queens do not fight with each other. Viewed: 3363 times. |
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| Well, I thought, this queen cells seems to be too long! There must be something different...I proceeded to open the cell. Viewed: 3048 times. |
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| It appears that the larva had inadvertently dropped near the mouth of the orignal cell, so the bees just made the cell longer. normally the larva should sit near the bottom of the cell, but because all queen cells point upwards, I suppose gravity sometimes plays tricks with bees also. The cell on right, on the other hand, appeared to be too small. Several of these sealed cells had a tiny larva in them. Not sure what is wrong. It is possible that workers have used drone larvae for emergency cells, since all other brood closeby are drones. Viewed: 2912 times. |
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| A grafted frame showing good acceptance of queen cells. Notice that each cell has lots of bees festooning on it, a sign showing that the colony has enough workers. * Viewed: 3819 times. |
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Album: Beekeeping 
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