Never rush royalty

Healthy slab of worker brood

I should be more patient!

Last week I thought the queen in the observation hive had failed to mate properly and was a drone-layer. She had laid two slabs of drone brood with no sign of worker brood, something I had never seen a newly mated queen do in a full-sized hive before.

So I (wrongly) assumed she had not mated properly.

Well, of course she knew what she was doing and a healthy slab of worker brood has now been laid (picture on left).And nectar is pouring in too, so I may have to think about exchanging a frame to make sure they have space.

Two super frames almost filled with honey. Note the drone brood in the bottom right of the lower super frame.

Vita’s Guest Beekeeper Blogger