The Flying Queen

[Jeff M]

Something quite unusual happened today!

I'm going to unite a small swarm with an established hive and offered the laying queen from the swarm to any club member that needed a queen rather than squish her.
The beek came over this afternoon to collect her and she was found quite easily, however, rather than be caught she decided to take a flying tour of the garden. She was gone a few minutes before returning to the top of a frame in the nuc, when she was successfully caught.
We were quite astonished, as neither of us had heard of a laying queen so readily wanting to fly when not in 'swarm mode'.

 

[dn170221]

It is a heart stopping moment when your queen takes to the wing.
Luckily when it happened to me she flew from the frame I had her on to a piece of foam I have for the roof where I used a crown of thorns to mark and clip her!

 

[Finman]

It is a heart stopping moment when your queen takes to the wing!

That sounds dangerous. ....
.

 

[Robbo8916]

This happened last time I was at an apiary open day. We were about to catch and mark her and she took off. We looked then decided we would wait. We thought she was gone until someone standing behind me pointed out that she was on my head!!!

(I was holding the frame at the time of takeoff)