Queen wing deformity?

[Beagle23]

Afternoon.

I carried out a split last week and was rewarded with a new queen 6 days ago. I've just had a quick look n her nuke and there's a problem, one of her 4 wings (the lower left), looks like it failed to develop, it still has that stringy, unfurled look that wings of newly hatched bees have.

My question is this, is there a chance that the wings are still developing after 6 days?

 

[B+.]

My question is this, is there a chance that the wings are still developing after 6 days?

Queens become sexually mature around the 6 day mark so must be able to fly in order to mate.
Most likely, the wing buds were damaged while she was still in the cell. You have to be very careful with queen cells.

 

[Heather]

Varroa??

 

[Beagle23]

Dammit, that's what I feared.

Thanks

 

[Beagle23]

No sign of varroa. I think I may have damaged the QC when I moved the frame during the split

 

[tonyofarr]

If the queen cell was not kept warm enough towards the end of development the queens wings can be affected. I found this out years ago when I did not have enough bees in a nuc to generate the right temperature and I ended up with a wingless queen.

 

[oliver90owner]

The answer to your question is “no chance’.