Spotty brood pattern - eggs hanging out of butt

[bee-nuts]

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. 

[BlueBee]

That is a good story :)  Maybe it is tougher being royalty than we think!

[Kathyp]

are you sure she's not new and just getting the hang of things?

[bee-nuts]

"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!

[beyondthesidewalks]

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.