22 Capped Queen Cells on Sept 24th

I am in Guelph, ON and the weather here has been utterly gorgeous for the last couple weeks. 25+ degrees (Celcius) every day. Today it felt like it could have been 30 degrees or more and even the nights have been somewhere betweeen warm and pleasantly cool. It’s the best weather we’ve had all summer.
The goldenrod has been in full bloom and my hives have been filling themselves with honey for the winter.

I hadn’t done a full inspection since august since things were going great and I had harvested what honey I was going to take. I had done a couple quick peeks to check on a couple new frames the bees were building wax on and to treat for varroa, but I hadn’t gone past the top box.

Today I did a full inspection on my hives and when I got to the bottom of my one hive (Queen Beetifa) I found over 20 capped queen cells on 4 different frames. There was no sign of Queen Beetifa to be found, there were a few sections of capped brood but no open larvae and no eggs. In fact the bees had filled every other open cell with nectar, honey or pollen.

Question: What are the chances of the new Queen hatching, mating and surviving long enough to get the hive through winter?

I have no idea when they were laid or when the cells were capped. I do know that at the end of august everything was great and Beetifa was present and accounted for and doing quite well (or so I thought).
I saw some Drones still in the hive, but not many and no capped drone brood. My parent’s bee hive had a number of drones still in the hive and even had a few drone cells capped.

Does anyone in the Southern Ontario/ GTA region have experience with bees successfully mating this late in the season?
Is Beetifa’s hive doomed for the winter?

If you still have drones about then theres a very good chance your new queen will mate and thrive.

I would do an even split, leave cells in both, come back in four weeks and look for eggs. Once the queens are laying well, recombine for winter unless you think they are strong enough to winter separately.

1 Like