Hi everyone. I recently requeened a hive which had a poor performing queen.
It took the queen three days to arrive. I had previously erradicated the
poor queen upon ordering a replacement. I put the queen cage in the brood
chamber after removing the cork from the candy end and punching a hole
through the candy to make it easier for the bees to release the queen. Five
days later, upon inspection the marked queen was still in the queen cage
with some dead attendant bees blocking her escape hole from the cage. The
bees in the hive were on the screen fanning the queen as they had already
accepted her, so I popped the top off of the cage and laid it back down on
the top bars of the brood frames. The queen then quickly escaped and took
flight. I was really upset watching her fly away. Not wanting to have to
wait for another queen to arrive, I took a few queen cells from an adjacent
hive which once had a good queen in it which had died or vanished, and put
them in the now truly queenless hive. It had been eight days since the last
egg was laid in the hive and since I had introduced a new queen, the bees in
the hive did not make any emergency cells and now all the larva was too old
to do so. After waiting a few days, I reinspected the hive. To my joy, it
appeared that a queen had hatched and tore the other queen cells down. After
a closer inspection I discovered that the marked queen had returned to the
hive and appears to be very healthy. I guess she absoloutly had to mate upon
being released. Any one ever had a similar experience?

_________________________________________________________________
Watch the online reality show Mixed Messages with a friend and enter to win
a trip to NY
http://www.msnmessenger-download.click-url.com/go/onm00200497ave/direct/01/

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::