In message <00bb01c343e5$8b116290$7604c518@gollum>, James Fischer <[log in to unmask]> writes >Something "scary" happened yesterday. snip >The odds against both "losing the queen", and also finding her right >under your nose? I dropped a queen and not finding her, thought she must have dropped into the hive. After looking through all the ret of the hives, I went past that hive and discovered a small cluster of bees ushering her back towards the leg of the hive stand on the opposite side to where I thought I'd dropped her. But a friend reported losing a clipped queen, then found her in a neighbouring colony where the clipped queen had also been lost, but entered at a stage where he had already reduced the cells to just one. The queen laid a few eggs then the virgin hatched and went off in a swarm leaving the foreign queen to take over. I will get the full story as I think he said the second queen had done the same and had gone into a mating nuc with a cell. -- James Kilty :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::