I have had a queen in full lay fly.

At the time, our Association had an apiary at the College in
Stratford-upon-Avon and I had an apiary in a garden about 200 yards away
over two rows of houses.  The Association had one very bad tempered colony
and as I was planning to requeen one of my colonies I thought that it might
be a good idea to use the old queen (in her second year) to requeen the
Association colony.

I found the queen, reached for a cage, looked back - and she was not on the
comb.  I went through the colony again and found her - she had flown from
the face of the comb back into the colony.  I made sure that I caged her the
second time and went round to the Association site.

At this point I decided that it might be a good idea to clip and mark her
so, working on the rear parcel shelf of the car, I opened her cage.  She
immediately ran out and took to the air, circling slowly around with her
heavy abdomen hanging  down.  I watched her head off over the houses in the
direction of her home!

I returned to my apiary, went through the hive again and, sure enough, there
she was back in her original hive.  I caught her again, clipped and marked
her in the car - with the windows shut! - and introduced her to the
Association hive where she spent the rest of her days.  I find it incredible
that a queen that had been in full lay for over a year, and presumably had
not flown since her mating flight (?), was able to remember the surrounding
land and navigate back to her hive.

This happened in my early days of beekeeping and was a useful lesson,
although I had a similar incident with a young queen that I had raised (she
had laid up a few frames in the mating nuc) and was planning to introduce
into one of my hives.

In this case I took her to the new apiary where she managed to escape.  I
watched her fly around and then disappear from sight. However, I sat and
watched and waited and after about 15 minutes she reappeared and then
pitched on some weeds.  I quickly threw a veil over her and was then able to
 catch her.

Peter Edwards
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