Last week when I checked on the Phoenix hive, they produced 3 supersedure queen cells and filled the cells with bee and royal jelly.

I decided not to interfere, figuring the bees knew best.

I just wanted to peek on them today, and see if the queen cells were capped, so I'd have a good idea on when to expect them to hatch.

I pulled the frame with the supersedure cells from last week only to find they had all been torn down.



In the picture above, you can see the largest queen cell in the upper right has been emptied, and is being dismantled. In the lower left corner, you can see the two queen cells side by side have also been cleaned out and dismantled.

I saw the queen in this hive today, so I know she's still there and alive.



Here's what I think happened...tell me if you think this is a plausible explanation or if you think I'm just crazy.

Over the past two weeks I've given the Phoenix hive a frame of bees/brood from the Blue/Purple hive to help strengthen it. Then I gave the Phoenix hive two frames from the PW hive, to hopefully (but apparently not) reduce their desire to swarm.

The Phoenix frame I saw 3 supersedure cells on were from one of the donor hives.

I'm thinking the nurse bees on the donated frames couldn't detect their old queen's pheromones any longer, or didn't like the queen in the Phoenix hive or couldn't detect her yet and built replacement cells. Then, after a few days of being in the Phoenix hive, they realized they already had a sufficient queen, and aborted their supersedure cells.

That's what I'm thinking anyway!

After having received a couple of donated frames to strengthen them, they're finally taking syrup, and fast too. They were finally ready for their second brood box, which I happily gave to them. Hopefully with all the syrup their wax glands are ready to draw out the top brood box and further expand their hive.



Above is a picture of how I left them, with their hive-top feeder in place, and a new deep brood box ready for them to draw out and use.