A Queen is born!

During colony inspection today I noticed that I broken open a queen cell. I could see her abdomen and she was being very still. I'm betting she was a bit confused as the cell shouldn't have opened behind her!

I did go in and find her to move her to another queenless colony rather than her perhaps fighting the other virgin queen to the death as usually happens. I also found another queen cell around the same stage as this one making me think the colony was preparing to swarm, otherwise the first to Vqueen to hatch would have dispatched the two later hatching queens.

This turns out to be a win-win for the queens and me. They get to live and I get to put them in my other colonies. The colony I took them from was quite strong coming out of winter, so these girls have the genetics to be successful.

The mild Spring temperatures have really slowed things down this year. I'm expecting the next couple of weeks to get very busy.

-Kevin