Had a stroke of luck yesterday after a schoolgirl error that I won't be making again....!
I introduced a new queen in a cage into a queenless hive and left her to settle for 48hrs. She was a home grown queen from my other apiary and was laying beautifully .......and I was convinced I had already clipped her (there is the error!).
Checked yesterday, no emergency queen cells in the hive and the bees were calm around the introduction cage so I thought I would just release her onto the top of the frames. Opened the cage a crack and, flipping heck, off she flew, up, up and away until I lost sight of her! Arghh!
Looked around for about an hour - no sign
Came back 5hrs later and went through the hive just on the outside chance she had made her way back home even though she'd come from another apiary and probably had no idea where 'home' was! - no sign
Having now given up all hope I decided to do a couple of routine inspections on other hives in the apiary whilst I still had all my kit out. Opened up the first hive, cracked the crown board off, I turned and picked up my hive tool, and lo and behold, a small miracle, I saw my missing queen with her distinct yellow dot fly in and settled on one of the top bars! I quickly whipped her up, re caged her (with a fondant plug this time) and popped her back in the queenless hive.
I wonder what she was up to on her day out!