Return of the Queen of Frankenhive

She's baaaaack!
Well, after several days the class popped the lid on the former Frankenhive to have a look at the tamed throng. Surprize! The top box, supposedly with no queen (having been fatally wounded in action) never-the-less had tons of bees all over the pile of old combs, festoons hanging from the lid, and...eggs & young larvae! So, somehow, a queen was once again with the colony. Where did she come from? Could the damaged queen have miraculously recovered? Was there a sneaker queen in the colony that took over? We may never know. Weird. So, the hive had still been a double-queen affair despite the initial attempt to combine.

To try once again to tame the beast, the known queen from the bottom box was removed, all the bees from the top box (including the mystery queen, hopefully) were shaken and brushed off their old combs onto the new foundation below to join the existing small, now queenless colony there, and then all the brood-containing combs were put back in the to box on top of a queen excluder. Three weeks hence, all the brood will have emerged and the old comb can be recycled and replaced with new foundation. This should be the last step in making a single-queen, strong colony. Or so we hope.

New Queens Released, More Swarms

On Sunday our new queens were released into two un-queened receiver colonies and they dove right in. They'd been in cages for 3 days, each getting used to the odors of her new realm. In a month the worker bees will begin to take on her characteristics and we hope for the best!

Jerry the Bee Guy keeps supplying us with bees to fortify the existing hives. The 10th swarm so far (including removal jobs) was added to hive 6 later on Sunday. This is an awkward way to build up the bee population but it should work.

Royalty On Her Own Time

Queens in transit. A few of her daughter workers are included to take care of her until she is released. 

We waited an extra few weeks. Then an extra 9 nerve-wracking days during which time the "receiver" colonies gave up and began to rear their own queens. Finally they arrived, our experimental stock from "local" breeder in southern Oregon. Immediately they were installed in small "nuc" hives with small populations of anxiously awaiting workers. The nucs were made up from two of the best swarms collected the past 2 weeks. One was queenless after ensconced in a Farm hive but the other had a queen that waited a week to begin laying; she had to be transferred to another swarm hive that was also apparently queenless. The new hybrid queens will be released from their cages in 3 days and should be laying within a day or so in their adopted colony. They are supposed to be "resistant" but these days, this is like saying your cereal is full of "goodness". But they are as local as we could find on short notice and we will be testing them against Varroa mites and for hygienic behavior.

Boom & Bust Behind Glass

Observation hive dynamics take a downturn.

Queen cells first observed

It became obvious that the observation hive cast off a swarm when 3 queen cells were seen on one of the upper frames. The population of the hive, recently bolstered with the addition of brood and bees from another hive, was also suddenly lower. On June 7th, two of the queen cells were open. By then, the bees had diminished to only enough to cover a couple of frames. A queen was seen among them. However, she seemed lethargic and did not command a very impressive retinue. Sometimes pre-mating queens behave differently, so this could have been the situation. Weather would have prevented mating anytime in the past few days. But on closer inspection, her right rear leg appeared paralyzed, which is possibly why she was slow. She may have been injured in fighting with her emerged sister. This is not a good sign. Will she survive? Will she lay? In a week or so we should know. She may need to be replaced.
Life behind glass is always more precarious than in a normal hive. Fortunately, we have the means to stabilize the situation and should have a vibrant colony on display by Summer term!