Emergency queen rearing in honeybee colonies with brood of known age

In four honeybee colonies, queens were isolated on empty combs for 8 consecutive days, so that in every colony there were 8 combs containing brood of known age. Afterwards, the colonies were dequeened and the process of emergency queen rearing was observed. The average interval from egg laying to queen cell capping was 8.8 days and ranged from 7 to 12 days. The average interval from queen cell capping to queen emergence was 7.2 days and ranged from 5 to 8 days. The whole development time from egg laying to queen emergence was 15.7 days, ranging from 14 to 18 days. The age of brood at the moment of dequeening positively correlated with both the time of capping and the total queen development time. The average age of brood (at time of dequeening) around which queen cells were built was 3.0 days. However, higher proportions of queen cells with younger larvae were destroyed; in effect, the age of brood at dequeening from which queens emerged was 3.4 days