Silent Supersedure
Verhalten der Bienen
The colony replaces its queen without swarming.
The colony replaces its queen without swarming. For this it raises individual cells in the middle of the brood area, usually in late summer and autumn, and keeps the old queen alive in the meantime.
For a while, two queens are present in the colony. Unlike young swarm queens, they coexist peacefully; the old one is only removed once the young one has proven herself. A typical trigger is the old queen's exhausted supply of sperm. If drone and worker cells appear singly mixed together on a comb, her supply is running out.
For practical purposes this is the most important difference from swarm season: anyone who breaks such cells in late summer takes away the colony's only chance of a new queen. If the silent supersedure fails, the colony becomes drone-laying. Conspicuously long-tolerated drones in autumn are a sign of a queen problem.