What is going on?

[xC0000005]

I went out to inspect my hive this morning. When last I posted, I believed they had swarmed while I was gone, and that I had a virgin queen. I hoped that today I'd see some eggs, but no luck. I was very surprised to find the old queen, wandering the center of the brood nest, looking for an empty cell. The old queen is light yellow with no stripes, and barely a dark spot at the end of her abdomen - the queen I spotted last week resembled the workers more than the old queen - darker in color, and thinner than the old queen. (If you'd had told me a year ago I could tell one bee from another, even a queen, I'm not sure I'd have believed it, but they are suprisingly easy to distinguish).

I thought they had swarmed - I had many queen cells broken from the side, and one that had a neatly chewed off bottom, but now I'm not so certain. The old queen was almost certainly in the hive last time, I must have just missed her.

Bad news - no uncapped brood or eggs from either queen. Weather's been good (and is expected to be good for a while) so if the new queen needed to mate, she's certainly had a good couple of weeks to do so.

Is it possible that they are still planning on swarming? I thought the old queen left the hive in that case before or shortly after the new queens hatched.

To cap every thing off, I got stung on the finger as I was putting the hive back together. I know - I'm keeping bees, I should expect to get stung, but honestly it hasn't happened much. These bees are really gentle, even under my inexperienced (and mistake prone) care. Good to know I'm not deathly allergic, but it hurts. Now if I could just figure out what they are up to.

[Ross]

Thinner than the old queen -- sounds like a virgin.

[peggjam]

Maybe they were supercecding the old queen, and something happened to the new queen on her mating flight. It is common for them to have two queens in the hive under this situation, as a daughter queen doesn't always dispatch her mother. Give them a frame of eggs if you have another hive, and see if they start new queen cells.

peggjam

[xC0000005]

>Thinner than the old queen -- sounds like a virgin.

I believe so - she was ignored by the workers, even when walking slowly across the comb. I could not locate her this time, but since I missed the larger, easier to spot queen the first time around, I've got little confidence she's really gone.

All those queen cells that were littering the hive are torn down, except for the original two cups, which odly enough were trimmed back to almost their original size, so I guess the hive is content with its new queen, I just need to be patient and give her time to lay.

[Terri]

The last post, when you saw the opened cells, was on the sixth, so it is POSSIBLE that the new queen has only been hatched for a week.

Since the average virgin takes 2 weeks to start laying after she hatches, she might still be too young. I've BTDT close enough, and the next time I checked there was LARGE brood: she must have started laying the very next day or so.

[Michael Bush]

Virgin queens are typically ignored by the workers. The seldom have a "court".