I have a question, I did a split 2 weeks ago. I checked the hive after week one and they did cap a queen cup, it was bigger than a drone cell but not peanut size. ? My question is ….does the cup get bigger, peanut size as the queen grows or is the new queen in her peanut size cup from the get go? Not sure I should go in there again today and try again. I don’t want to disturb them for another week if they made a new queen.

Ian Kj: Sounds like you got an emergency-queen. She’ll be ok but not the best she could have been. Ideally you want a full-sized cell. You can look up “on-the-spot queen rearing” for how to get excellent queens on demand at hobby scale.

SmilenEz Redhawk: Thank you!

Joe Hedges: I’ve read where the queen cups on the frame, rather than below, are actually the same as the other queen cells. It appear smaller because they start in the back of the cell, extend the normal length, then protrude further.Terrible explanation but I hope you see what I’m saying.

SmilenEz Redhawk: ?? Thank you, yes that makes sense and that’s what I was thinking since her head would be farther into the comb.

Ian Kj: The part of the cell embedded in the matrix is of standard worker-bee cross-sectional area, as I’m sure you can imagine. A queen’s thorax is supposed to be a bit larger than a worker’s (or else queen excluders wouldn’t function). Implications are left as an exercise for the reader.

Donny Johns: Some peanuts are bigger than others, I’ve seen Georgia peanuts that are way bigger than Texas peanuts. When they say like a peanut , I believe they are talking of the sculpting that the bees do that look like a peanut on the queen cell.

SmilenEz Redhawk: Yes the design ?? Thank you. ?