Update: Miriam's Hive

Yesterday, I finished off checking Miriam's hive, and dug out another couple of queen cells.  I also double-checked the frames that I inspected yesterday - and a good thing, too;  the bees had already re-built three of the cells that I cut out yesterday, and two had eggs in (which I removed).  I'm going to have to keep an eye on them for at least a couple more weeks, yet.

One of the queen cells I cut out was capped - and I nearly missed it, because the bees had built it right on the bottom of the comb, next to the bottom bar of the frame.  Because of the awkward position, they'd had to curve it round to the side, so it looked at first glance like a drone cell.  I had to have a really good look before I realised it was definitely a queen cell.  Lucky I spotted it when I did, or the bees would have almost certainly swarmed today or tomorrow!

I thought it would be interesting to open it up and take a look, as it shows a stage of development that I didn't cover in my recent post on Queen Bee Larvae.  This is the fully-grown larva after the cell has been capped, but before it goes through metamorphosis - at this point it is probably around 9-10 days old: