Hi folks,
I've been traveling a bit this spring - and am wondering if I possibly missed a swarm from my main hive.
I went through today and removed my supers - to examine for any queen cells, etc... and came across this frame in my brood box. This frame is about 75% drawn, and DOES have eggs in it (worker cells - not drone). Here's a pic of the queen that I found on this frame. She looks pretty slender to me. Mated or virgin?
Just left of center in the photo...
(Hopefully this works - it's a Google + placed photo)
https://plus.google.com/photos/104265049585696801171/albums/5730579678555992865/5730579681255181346
From my limited experience I'd bet mated. The virgin queens I handle are shorter to me. The eggs are a dead give away, that's your mated queen. The fact that she was on the same frame as the eggs further supports my bet. When you find eggs, the laying queen is normally nearby. Multiple queens of any form in the same hive are rare. If this hive just swarmed or was about to swarm there would be no eggs as the queen stops laying and slims down for flight.
What parts of Richardson are you from? My wife grew up near Arapaho just off of 75 where my mother-in-law still lives.
mated. if not her, then another one in there. she looks fine to me!
you would not have laying workers and and queen in the hive. if you have seen a queen and you have eggs, you have a laying queen.
That would be my guess to, that she is your laying queen. Nice pic also
Joe
you have a mated queen,the virgin queen would be smaller.you have eggs so shes laying.
Thanks folks!
* DCoates - I'm near Plano Rd & Campbell (Yale Elementary area). We also have a place in the woods near Tyler, Texas that I'm in-process of moving to this summer.
I purchased 4 queens this last Monday - and made 4 nuc splits off of my main hive. The main hive *was* 3 deeps tall + 2 supers. Now down to 1 deep with a box of foundationless frames above it along with the honey supers. Gonna keep feeding the ladies to make sure they draw plenty of comb in the empty box above.
Nice young laying queen!