As a second year beekeeper I thought I would share a new experience I
witnessed this past weeekend.
 
        In an attempt to squelch a swarmy hive on May 11 I prepared a four frame
nuc with frames from the hive preparing to swarm. One of the frames had 2 capped
queen cells. This past week the weather has been cool and damp and I had noticed
little activity from this nuc. It was placed about 5 feet from the original hive
but most of the bees stayed in the nuc. So things seemed okay except for the
lack of any real activity outside the hive.
 
        On Saturday, May 17, while inspecting the nuc, I noticed that one of the
queen cells was open. The other cell was intact. I was very lucky to hear the 2
queens piping. The hatched queen would make her call and then the unhatched
queen would respond with a similar but muffled reply. It was amazing. I located
the hatched queen on the opposite side of comb vigorously looking for her rival.
I completed by inspection, please that I had a live queen.
 
        Sunday provide the first fine weather and my other 4 hives showed good
activity. The nuc still seemed very quiet. About noon I did finally notice bee
emerging, both workers and drones. At about 1:30 I made a quick inspection to
see if the other queen cell was still intact. It was, and there were very few
bees left in the nuc. I wondered if they had swarmed or maybe returned home
given the first real warm weather since the nuc was made.
 
        Well at about 2:00 I heard an unusual amount of bee activity outside. My
hives are on my deck off the family room. I was thinking maybe the swarmy hive
was swarming. It was the bulk of the nuc's population returning to the nuc all
at the same time. Given the small entrance the bees were all over the front face
and on the deck railing with many bees fanning to indicate the hive location. I
didn't see the queen though I assume she was with them.
 
        It was an exciting two days. My question is did the bees escort the
queen on her maiden flight and return with her and mark the location to assist
her in finding the hive? Is this typical behavior? If it is, it would definitely
decrease the risk of queen predation having all the sisters along for the
flight.
 
        Regards,
 
        Jim Moore
        Second year,
        4 hives (1 tbh) + one 4-frame nuc