I put a Minn. hygenic queen into this hive in May. Three days after putting her container in the hive, I checked and she had been released. Two weeks later, I checked carefully each frame in my 8 frame medium super, finding no queen nor any eggs or larva. I assumed she was dead and began adding a frame of eggs from another hive. A week later, I looked again thoroughly through the hive and found one frame with a few eggs. Subsequently, the hive has been building well with a good laying pattern, almost entirely worker cells, and things look great. I have yet to see the queen again, though. On my last inspection earlier this week, I noticed upon examing the frame closely this bee in the upper right. Is this the queen? There certainly is no laying worker in evidence and other bees have their heads down in cells on the perimeter of the frame that have some honey in them, but this one has her abdomen in the cell. Just curious. If it is her, she seems darker than most Italian queens I've had that usually have a long, very golden abdomen.
