Does anyone have any before and after photos?

[Juststarting]

When looking through my nuc checking on store levels I think I spotted my virgin queen, but I was surprised how small she was and that she wasnt that different from the workers. Now I didnt spend a great deal of time looking at her or checking frames but I didnt see a "better" candidate for queen.

A while later when checking the same nuc for eggs (to see if she had mated) I again spotted the queen this time she was very obviously a queen.

How much does a queen change from being mature but unmated to being a laying queen?

Does anyone have before and after pics?

If its as much as mine seemed to change its no wonder virgin queens are so hard to spot.

 

[susbees]

Depends how well they're bred and how well they're mated. The best with their full (or fullish) complement of ovarioles and well-mated have three abdominal segments beyond the end of their folded wings so hard to miss. Rearing issues limit the number of ovarioles so smaller queens whatever.

I've pulled a few lately but they scuttle off rather than posing for the camera I find. And I only do that if the VQ is a good size in the first place.

I assume you're using your nuc for hatching a good quality QC rather than rearing from a larva in there?

 

[Juststarting]

Thanks Susbees,

Yes my aim was to raise a good quality queen.

I set up the nuc when my main hive produced what looked like a supercedure cell - 1 cell, large larva central to frame. I removed this frame from hive and set up in 4 frame nuc as i was wanted another queen to potentially replace the older queen (3 yrs) in main hive but I was worried that If I had misread the supercedure they could have swarmed. I was prepared to AS main hive if they produced more QCs, but they didnt so looks like they were superceding.

New queen looks good and is laying well - just waiting to check that its worker brood.

I will decide whether to use in main hive later in season when I see how both develop and if main hive decides to swarm or laying reduced. At the moment the older queen is still very prolific.

i was just surprised that the only candidate I had seen for virgin queen seemed so different from the laying one. Most likely I missed identified virgin - hence question.

 

[Poly Hive]

It is unusual to see more than one virgin in a colony unless they are literally just emerged and not yet go themselves sorted out.

Only one queen at a time is the usual condition unless superceeding.

PH

 

[Juststarting]

PH

I'm sure there was only one queen present but I think I might have picked out a "different" looking worker bee rather than the virgin. I didnt need to find her so didnt spend a lot of time checking the other frames - I was assessing stores and thought I had spotted her on the frame as I checked. At the time I wasn't sure and thought she was too small. Having now seen laying queen who is as large as I would expect a healthy queen, I began wondering if this was the case or if there was a significant change in the size of the queen after mating.