2011-06-07: Queen Spotting

The plan for this trip to the bee yard was to first weed whack the bee yard, then move the frames out of the yellow deep box in Artemis and put them in a matching green deep and then put that box on top of the other deep. This would accomplish making the hive one uniform color and to reverse the boxes to decrease the chances of a swarm. I had done the later earlier in the season, but Steve Parise thought it would be a good idea to do it again. After those two chores, I wanted to get the third hive, which I have decided to name Ceres after the roman goddess of agriculture and who adorns the Vermont State House, into a blue box.

I took the top off of Artemis and notices that I had a green drone frame in there. I then remembered I had left it in there last Fall since it had been filled with honey at that time since the hive had probably stopped drone production when it went in. I decided to remove it and put a new one in, but while I was picking out frames, I might as well do an inspection and give most of the frames a one over. So I started removing frames from one side. I liked the look of the frames, the bees were working all of them, even the ones on the very outside. And when I got to the drone frame I had a surprise waiting for me. There I saw one of my queens for the very first time. She was obvious as soon as I saw her with her elongated and paler end and she also moved in a different way.. almost like an inch worm because she was extended so much more than a worker bee. Well, she was busily laying more eggs into the worker frame. I got flustered and instead of calmly brushing her off onto a different frame, I put the drone frame back in to think what to do. I then removed the frame again and she appeared to have now gone... hopefully she got the hint and skittered off to the lower box. I then brushed off the workers and put that drone frame on the ground and slid in a fresh drone frame. Since I wasn't sure where my queen might be, I decided to hold off on the frame transfer and reversing.

While moving the frames in Ceres to their new home, I had a chance to look at them. Everything seemed in order, except that I noticed several open supersedure cells on some of the frames that did come with the nuc. I am not sure if they are a sign that the nuc had superseded after arriving or before... or perhaps the frame was recycled and they were from other hive's revolution. I also went ahead and added another deep (also painted blue). It might be a little early to place it but I would rather err on the side of caution. Finally, I placed the old box on top of the inner cover on top of the hive in order to allow the bees clinging to it to retreat back into their new home.

I didn't do anything with Juno that day.