Queen Cell
Lexikon
The queen cell is the special comb cell in which a new bee queen grows.
The queen cell is the special comb cell in which a new bee queen grows. It differs clearly from the hexagonal brood cells for workers and drones: it is roughly egg-shaped, hangs freely from the comb face or the comb edge, and opens downward. According to consistent sources, it reaches a length of around two centimeters, considerably more than a normal cell.
What is decisive for development into a queen is not the cell itself but the feeding: the larva in the queen cell receives royal jelly exclusively from the nurse bees' hypopharyngeal glands throughout the entire larval period, while worker larvae are switched after a few days to a mixture of pollen and nectar. This difference in nutrition decides whether a fertilized egg becomes a queen or a worker.
Two forms are distinguished by occasion and location: swarm cells are built at the edge or lower area of the comb in anticipation of planned reproduction through swarming, while emergency queen cells arise as an emergency measure from converted worker cells in the middle of the brood nest, when the existing queen is suddenly missing. For beekeeping practice this means: on seeing a queen cell, it must first be established which of the two cases applies, because the appropriate measures differ fundamentally, whether it is swarm prevention or allowing a supersedure.