A question for those wiser than I:
On an over-wintered hive, I noted that the queen was failing to lay
large amounts of brood (a bit here, a bit there). The bees looked
healthy (no deformation of wings, there seemed to be a low mite
infestation level). The bees were covering maybe three to four frames
of a nine frame deep hive body. The queen was found. I deduced that I
had a failing queen (she was maybe two years old). The hive had not
exactly thrived the past summer. Therefore, I killed the old queen and
requeened with a newly purchased Buckfast queen. Due to inclement
weather, it was six days before I could check on release of the new
queen. The queen was still caged with attendant bees also alive, the
candy was almost eaten through. I manually released her, and I noted no
evidence of balling the queen. She casually looked around, sat on my
finger actually, and then as I put my finger between frames, she ran
off down the frames. Now, seven days later, I find no larvae in the
hive, an old opened queen cell, and an unmarked, large, light colored
queen on the frames (the Buckfast queen was marked). Can anyone
enlighten me on the sequence of events here? I can imagine a two or
three scenarios to account for what I have found. Any words of wisdom
would be appreciated.

Gerald Herrin
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