Anyone notice their workers being prone to removing paint markings from new queens?
Back story- I split a strong feral hive, intro’d a new marked queen in one (push in cage), removed the feral queen from the other. I monitored the now queenless hive, removing queen cells until any last brood was capped, then intro’d a new marked queen there (push in cage).
Fast forward to after they’ve been released. I know both hives took the queens as the queens were cordovan’s and I was seeing lots of cordovan bees in both hives. But, in both hives, I found unmarked queens, no opened queen cells in either.
I checked the hives over very thoroughly for any hidden queen cells I may have missed, didn’t find any.
My only thought is they stripped the paint off of both the queens. I have 10 hives, have requeened at least half every year and have never seen this. Maybe I’m nuts?
I've watched it happen in my observation hive when they are trying to kill a new queen but end up accepting her. They balled her for 6 days. During that time they bit her and removed the paint.
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