Yesterday afternoon I conducted a hive inspection. One hive is still doing very well, but I suspect that one of the hives is not queenright. That is, the hive is either missing a queen entirely, or the queen is sick or injured, and unable to lay eggs. Clearly, this is very frustrating.
So today I ordered a new queen from Glenn Apiaries. They are shipping me a Minnesota Hygienic/SMR queen cross. She should be here on Wednesday, and I will introduce her as soon as I am able. She needs to start laying eggs as quickly as possible, since the loss of the old queen means that there will be no new bees emerging until at least 21 days after the new queen is accepted by the hive. Thus, the hive population will be dwindling from at least now until the time that new bees begin emerging from their cells. This can be a problem.
Insha Allah, introducing the new queen will go well, and the bees will be back on track to get through the winter.
Posted by emer0084 at June 26, 2005 4:10 PM