marked my first 2023 queen

[Cuckmere couple]

ordinarily i only MQ when i know she is mated and laying

however, today, doing a quick inspection in a new location, i found a large, unmarked queen in a strong colony and marked her

weird as two weeks ago, the yellow marked q was in this colony as an over wintered nuc, last week she was also there as i transferred into a hive

today i didnt see the yellow queen but this unmarrked one

it was a late swarm with a laying queen in it (i even posted about it as i thought id captured a returning mating flight - but i hadnt) so i suspect this is the daughter of the yellow queen and may not yet be mated...

interesting

 

[Ian123]

Do they have eggs… I’d suggest if she’s large and you have eggs in the hive she’s from an Autumn supcedure and you just not seen her till now. The old girl could still be there or eventually popped her clogs, I’ve found 3 queens in a hive before.

 

[jeff33]

Do they have eggs… I’d suggest if she’s large and you have eggs in the hive she’s from an Autumn supcedure and you just not seen her till now. The old girl could still be there or eventually popped her clogs, I’ve found 3 queens in a hive before.

I found 2 in the same hive 3 weeks ago, both mother and daughter were duff!!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Do they have eggs… I’d suggest if she’s large and you have eggs in the hive she’s from an Autumn supcedure and you just not seen her till now. The old girl could still be there or eventually popped her clogs, I’ve found 3 queens in a hive before.

Had three queens in a hive before now as well, and found a colony last week with two unmarked queens from last season
I've been marking last season's late supersedure queens every day this last week

 

[Cuckmere couple]

Do they have eggs… I’d suggest if she’s large and you have eggs in the hive she’s from an Autumn supcedure and you just not seen her till now. The old girl could still be there or eventually popped her clogs, I’ve found 3 queens in a hive before.

yes....strong colony....lots of eggs and BIAS etc and had seen the yellow marked queen over last two weeks

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Perfect supersedure - happens often, they don't always get rid of the old one immediately but keep both until the season is well under way.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Marked a spring superseded queen on sat only raised one cell queen is laying .

 

[rolande]

Marked a spring superseded queen on sat only raised one cell queen is laying .

Taking bets how long for?!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Taking bets how long for?!

Ooo. Is there a prize for this one?

 

[Ian123]

Ooo. Is there a prize for this one?

No I’m not putting another 1 up!!!!

 

[Erichalfbee]

No I’m not putting another 1 up!!!!

Spoilsport!

 

[GaryH]

I was in a training apiary. We had a task to find and mark the queen. Upon inspection we found a drone identifying as a queen with a red mark on it’s thorax.
Someone had been practicing queen marking on drones and had not dispatched this one.