Emergency Queen Cell
Lexikon
An emergency queen cell is a queen cell that a bee colony builds as an emergency measure when the queen is suddenly lost, for example through death, illness or a beekeeping error.
An emergency queen cell is a queen cell that a bee colony builds as an emergency measure when the queen is suddenly lost, for example through death, illness or a beekeeping error. Unlike with planned swarm cells, the worker bees do not build a new cell from scratch for this, but convert existing cells containing young worker brood into queen cells. That is why emergency queen cells are usually found scattered in the middle of the brood nest rather than at the edge of the comb.
It is important that only very young larvae are suitable for this, according to consistent sources no older than about three days, since in older larvae the developmental path toward becoming a worker has already progressed too far. The bees usually build several emergency queen cells at the same time, often five to six are mentioned, so that despite losses at least one queen hatches.
For everyday work with the colony, distinguishing this from a swarm cell is important: finding emergency queen cells usually confirms that queen loss has already occurred, not a planned swarming attempt. A common mistake among beginners is to hastily interpret every queen cell found as a sign of swarming mood and break it off, even though the colony is in fact queenless and urgently depends on exactly this cell to get a queen again.