I have a colony that has built up very well this spring, and last week they had started to construct queen cells. I've had limited success in the past with conventional artificial swarming, so I thought I'd try Demaree. So, on friday, I put a new brood box down in it's place, moved the queen with a frame of brood (mixed, some sealed, some unsealed) into it, along with some drawn comb and some foundation, put a (plastic) excluder on top, then an empty super, and finally the other brood box.
On wednesday, I checked and there were two queen cells in the bottom, which I removed after checking her majesty was still present, and upwards of a dozen emergency cells in the top, which I also removed.
Today, 7 days after the start of the Demaree, I found 2 more queen cells on the frame that was carried across and a hoard of queen cells in the top, mostly empty but some with older larva or jelly in. The bottom ones - well, maybe they're just really determined to swarm, or maybe they intended those to be queen cells from the start, or maybe I didn't destroy them thoroughly enough. The top ones though - there shouldn't have been any larva less than 5 days old in the top box. I checked very carefully, and there's no sign of any eggs in the top box. I was /very/ thorough about destroying the queen cells in the top.
It's as if they're trying to raise older larva as queens, and making cells with jelly but no eggs. I wondered if the queen had squeezed through (most of the paint has worn off her body), but there are no visible eggs, and she was in the bottom box when I checked.
The other possibility is maybe I missed cells that weren't obviously queens at that point - the cell hadn't been extended although the jelly feeding has started. That doesn't seem that likely though.
I'd also spilled a lot of very wet nectar on wednesday when checking for queen cells - it splashed on the floor by the hives. Today there was a dead mouse in the middle of it.
Bees, they're a weird bunch. The lesson for me here is, when doing a Demaree don't assume it'll work - check the hive 2ce a week for the first two weeks.
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