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Here are some pics of my primary Mother Queen, MQA and my first queen, raised in 2011 - she just started laying, today.
2011 Queen Photo Gallery
Since it is almost exactly two weeks since the first queen of 2011 emerged and she has just begun laying, my guess is that she found some drones to mate with, otherwise I would expect she would need another week or two before she would begin laying as a drone-layer. I'll need to wait about seven more days to find out for sure.
Joseph, nice looking little lady....Did you pass out cigars and pop a champaigne bottle????;) Once again, nicely bred, well proportioned queen. TK
Thank you Ted. I'm still holding my breath that she doesn't turn out to be a drone layer (my own hives are just now having drones emerge). I'm planning to start grafting my first small batch of about a dozen queen cells, tomorrow. Sisters that will hopefully join her, this season, in well-mated colony development.
Okay, I took a quick look for drones. Yaaaah, young drones in most hives, and even more drone brood than before.
I stole some nurse bees from a couple of colonies and put together my 5-frame medium, screened bottom nuc cell builder, then grafted a dozen cells from MQA. By the time these cells are virgin queens there should be more than enough drones to take care of them.
It's a good thing our temperatures came back around to our normal heat levels: 80-90'sF in the daytime and 50-60'sF at night.
YES , Spring is Here !!!! standing - :applause: :applause: :applause:
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