2 of the frames of my 5 frame nucleus had a queen cell on them. Should I be concerned?
If I had to guess, the queen cells are probably old and created prior to the introduction of the queen that I received with my nucleus. But… I am an overly cautious newbie and I want to make sure.
@lhengst When I installed my nuc, one of the frames had 2 queen cups on it.
I don’t advise reopening the hive and pulling frames just to show us pictures. You could roll and kill your new queen.
Found this online:
Actually it is quite normal to see queen cells, supercedure cells, etc. in a nuc. When a split is made to start a nuc colony, it contains unsealed brood. Often, a nuc is not provided to a new queen for a day or so, (whenever the beekeeper gets to it, or receives queens.) Partly because of the reduced size of a nuc box, bees in a nuc determine very quickly that they are queenless, and immediately take action to make a new queen while the eggs are still viable. Even when the queen is introduced and in her cage, she is of no benefit to the new split because she cannot lay eggs in a cage, and the clock is ticking.
The image you have is of queen cups.
Old ones will be dark. New ones will be lighter.
If that was my nuc I would make sure they are not charged.An egg in a queen cup needs keeping an eye on, i.e. go back three days after to see what the bees have done. White royal jelly in a queen cup means they are making a new queen. That does not indicate swarming necessarily. You know what frames they are on, have a quick look.
People here can give you all sorts of opinions and indeed there are quite a few possibilities but only you can tell us whether they are significant.