Look who popped out during an inspection.

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Motobiman

Field Bee
Joined
Jul 26, 2014
Messages
506
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Location
Horsham UK
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
Was five now four. Grrrrr
8EFF0F46-FFD0-4CF5-889D-3F249BFF7068_zpsqclly28m.jpg
 
I had missed two inspections due lousy weather and found five Q cells,

Took them out carefully I thought and put them down beside the hive on the stand.

When I had checked Madam was doing her stuff and closed up I turned to deal with them.

Three were damaged and then one opened right in my hand and out Mylady popped into my palm.

I got her into the clip you see her in then turned to the last one that had been seriously chewed around the top so I carefully opened it and this Q was also saved into the yellow clip you can just see.

Glad I had the kit in the box.
 
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The workers may have been keeping her in, which would explain how she popped out so fortuitously - check for other queens wandering around preparing to swarm.
 
I only found one other so hopefully she's the current layer.

Anyway, got to go away for a week now so they will have to do whatever it is they want to.

Se la vie. :)
 
Update - yesterday.

Checked this hive and BIAS and no further Q cells so guess I was dead lucky with the timings.

But too much to do so didn't bother finding and marking the Q so that's for next time.
 
That s a good tip, thanks.
 
Thinking about it, nobody had ever suggested to me that having a suitable queen container in your pocket is a good idea, I came to that conclusion by having to do lots of things where you want to know where the queen is. Something that should be in the "handy items" list for beginners I reckon. If you are going to suggest marking queens, then being able to put them somewhere safe temporarily is not a major step on!
 
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