Hi everyone. I recently requeened a hive which had a poor performing queen. It took the queen three days to arrive. I had previously erradicated the poor queen upon ordering a replacement. I put the queen cage in the brood chamber after removing the cork from the candy end and punching a hole through the candy to make it easier for the bees to release the queen. Five days later, upon inspection the marked queen was still in the queen cage with some dead attendant bees blocking her escape hole from the cage. The bees in the hive were on the screen fanning the queen as they had already accepted her, so I popped the top off of the cage and laid it back down on the top bars of the brood frames. The queen then quickly escaped and took flight. I was really upset watching her fly away. Not wanting to have to wait for another queen to arrive, I took a few queen cells from an adjacent hive which once had a good queen in it which had died or vanished, and put them in the now truly queenless hive. It had been eight days since the last egg was laid in the hive and since I had introduced a new queen, the bees in the hive did not make any emergency cells and now all the larva was too old to do so. After waiting a few days, I reinspected the hive. To my joy, it appeared that a queen had hatched and tore the other queen cells down. After a closer inspection I discovered that the marked queen had returned to the hive and appears to be very healthy. I guess she absoloutly had to mate upon being released. Any one ever had a similar experience? _________________________________________________________________ Watch the online reality show Mixed Messages with a friend and enter to win a trip to NY http://www.msnmessenger-download.click-url.com/go/onm00200497ave/direct/01/ :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::