I have a colony with a spotty brood pattern. I looked at it again today hoping for improvement. It was gunshot. I first thought that she was probably laying a lot of drones cause out of sperm or something and bees were eating the drone eggs but then I seen her with an egg hanging from her. She went right along laying like I was not there holding her out of the colony. But as I could see, many were not releasing properly, lol. The ol girl must be worn out.
It was just kind of a funny moment and thought it was worth sharing.
That is a good story :) Maybe it is tougher being royalty than we think!
are you sure she's not new and just getting the hang of things?
"are you sure she's not new and just getting the hang of things?"
Its March in Wisconsin, unless you mean new as in last fall. That is possible and I will not be able to replace her for two or three weeks so she will get a couple two three weeks to prove herself or get back into action.
I plan to start marking all my queens so I know these things but I am really scared that I could lose some of my prized girls to balling or injury. So I am going to try on my not so awesome queens first, like the one with egg butt, lol!
I've seen that same kind of behavior from a newly mated queen. I'd give her a week or two to get the hang of it.