This is bizarre to me; no old queens.  I read this was the case in "the beekeepers bible" last night as well, so a timely post.

However, in 2016, I had 17 hives in my yard here in eastern Washington.  All the hives had 2-12+ capped queen cells inside. Every single hive still had the old mated queen.  Some of the cells where so ripe that I was able to pull the fully developed virgin queens out and let them run around. I removed all capped and started queen cells, and opened up the brood nest/splits and prevented all 17 hives from swarming.  This was in mid to late April with nice weather.

Any thoughts out there on my experience vs. Charles and the book referenced above?

Thanks,

-Brett
Eastern WA

Sent from my iPhone

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 30, 2017, at 7:41 AM, Charles Linder 
> 
> 
> This last week I was working thru 300 hives 
> The thing I found quite fascinating was that ZERO hives with capped queen cells had the old queen still in them. 

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