Close call with one queen, possible assassination of another!

[gardeningfireman]

Checked my new TBH that I put a nuc into yesterday, just to see if they settled in. Went through the combs four times and couldn't find the queen. Happened to notice a ball of bees in the grass about eight feet away. There was the queen and her attendants! Picked her up and she went back into the TBH on her own off my hand. I guess she flew or fell of one of the combs as I was looking for her.

Checked other nuc for queen (could find one yesterday eve.). Appeared queenless, so I put in a deep with eggs and tiny brood from older hive. Checked closely for queen(marked with yellow) and didn't see her. Comb went into the nuc. Later in the afternoon I noticed a tight ball of bees on the stand of another TBH. The workers were "balling" and trying to sting the yellow marked queen from my original hive (she is the only marked queen I have). I figured she got booted out of her own hive in a supercedure and climbed up the cement block stand of the TBH ten feet away. I "rescued" her and put her on the entrance board to her own hive to see what would happen. A bunch of workers came out and gathered around her. They got a little testy with me so I left before I could see what happened. Came back 15 minutes later and couldn't see the queen outside the hive anywhere. If she was booted out the first time, she probably flew/crawled away again. If I messed up with the comb going to the nuc, then hopefully she was accepted back home.

[caticind]

Just curious, fireman - why were you looking so very hard for the queen?

Did you not see any eggs when you went through the combs the first time?

[gardeningfireman]

I was just checking the combs in the TBH to see if they were settled, and to practice finding an unmarked queen. When I took a frame out of the Lang to put in the queenless nuc, I was looking for eggs/young brood and wanted to make sure the queen WASN'T on it before putting it in. There was some capped brood in the nuc, but no eggs or young brood.