New Queen

[Margaret Sloan]

We installed a new package in our empty lang hive three days ago. When I checked today, the queen had been released, the bees were building some comb on the foundation. We found the queen; she seemed small, and she was moving pretty fast across the foundation. She had a few attendants, but she seemed to blow them off when they tried to touch her.

Is this normal? I'm used to big, slow moving queens with lots of attendants.

[NDnewbeek]

That sounds like the behavior I have seen in unmated queens. Is it possible that she is still a virgin?

[Margaret Sloan]

We got her from a bee supplier. So she should be mated. She doesn't have a short abdomen; it's long, but she's just small.

[StevenG]

Are eggs visible in some cells? I understand when a newly mated queen first starts laying, she's smaller, but the more she lays, the more she becomes what we're used to seeing. But if she's free, and there are no eggs, that's another story. I'd give her a couple more days before starting to worry.