Fast work

Hidden queen cells

Here are some well-hidden queen cells most of which were the first cells to be created on a sheet of foundation — the worker cells subsequently enclosed the sides of the queen cells.  How many can you see? Look carefully in the top quarter of the frame.

This frame of brood was created by an artificially swarmed colony. The old queen was clearly very vigorous, and the colony strong, but for whatever reason they didn’t want to set up home in the new hive for long. They almost filled a Langstroth brood box and the queen had gone before I returned from an eleven day holiday. It makes me wonder about artificial swarm techniques that cannot reflect the demographics of the natural swarm.

The empty cells in diagonal lines clearly mark the trail of the wire in the foundation.

Vita’s Guest Beekeeper Blogger