When a hive prepares to swarm the Queen slims down. When doing so does the abdomen shrink in length or girth or both. Yesterday Queen in the swarm looked small. Just trying to figure out if she was just slimmed down for flight or was this a after swarm with a virgin? I released her today out of clip. So I?ll get my answer this weekend. I?ll go in and take a peek.
Nock,
The bees put the queen on a diet so that she can fly. She will bee skinnier but I don?t usually see that much of a difference.
However I do see a big difference in the size of my virgin queens. Some are no bigger than a large bee until after they mate and are in full egg production.
You probably have a virgin queen.
Jim Altmiller