Today I checked on Hive #4. This is the hive I created from a split from hive #1. The new queen has a large abdomen and is actively laying. I saw a nice pattern of freshly laid eggs. I spotted the queen laying many eggs in the short time I was inspecting. She would first stick her head in a cell to check it out, then put her abdomen in and lay one egg, then move to the next cell and repeat.
I decided to go ahead and mark this queen even though I’m not sure if the eggs she is laying are fertilized. Since these eggs are only 1 day old, it will take a total of 9 days to cap a worker bee and 10 days to cap if it’s a drone. So I plan to check on this hive again on June 27 for capped larvae.
Here is a picture of the queen cage I used to trap the queen and mark her with a yellow dot on her back. The queen is circled in red under the cage. I also filled up the bucket feeder with 1:1 sugar water to give them food for the new larvae.
The Marked Queen. Yellow = 2012.
I also checked on the Nuc I am creating to re-queen hive #1. This queen also has a large abdomen but has laid no eggs at this point. She should start laying in the next day or so. I added more 1:1 sugar water to the entrance feeder.
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