Regarding the new appearance of a queen in an otherwise
   queenless/eggless colony.
 
   There's an American Bee Research Conference abstract in December (93 -
   95 issue of ABJ of observations made by Tibor Szabo. Having all queens
   identified with numbered discs, he was able to document the movement of
   several queens from one hive to another, and was able to directly
   observe movement of a queen with a small group of bees. Queenless hives
   were more attractive, I think.
 
   A personal observation regarding egg movement.
 
   We were once installing packages, with the intent of replacing the
   queens within a few days. We therefore left the queens in their cages
   with corks in place. When we came to remove the queen cages, at least 2
   of 30 or so queens had eggs on the cage screen. I remember seeing one
   that had about half a dozen eggs in the screen. Some of the eggs had
   been placed into cells in the comb, within about 1 cm of the cage, and
   were being reared (there had been no queen in the equipment prior to the
   package).
   The observation isn't absolute, since we didn't follow the larvae to be
   sure that they were not from laying workers on the outside of the cage,
   but that would be very strange behavior, while there was a queen
   present.
 
 
   Kerry Clark, Apiculture Specialist
   B.C. Ministry of Agriculture
   1201 103 Ave
   Dawson Creek B.C.
        V1G 4J2  CANADA          Tel (604) 784-2225     fax (604) 784-2299
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