Long live the Queen, and the Queen, and the Queen. .

Generally, optimism rules here at chez Stefani. I figure that most things work out, and I can almost always get a handle on whatever's happening. But I also know when I'm in over my head and need to call in reinforcements.

Bob and Barb were my reinforcements yesterday. That hive full o'queens was bothering me -- surely they were planning to swarm? And I called them for help. Good people that they are, they came over to help.


We got into the hive and almost immediately started finding capped queen cells. Small wonder, really, as this was the bottom brood box. Crowded -- quite crowded. This is the hive I split, taking a new queen to the hive on the left. Unfortunately, the foragers didn't get the memo, and they stayed in the (now smaller) home hive, so the bees to space ratio got messed up. I should have done more to help equalize that.


At first, we cut out the queen cells and set them aside. No one knew how well we were doing, as Bob and Barb are overly modest about their abilities, but suddenly, Barb said, "This one is hatching." She grabbed the cell and kept the cap shut, but said she could feel the queen's legs pushing against it. Bob is a very prepared beekeeper, unlike, oh, me, so he had queen cages. We started putting both the hatching queens and the still-capped cells into cages. Out they came -- it was like popcorn: once one started, they all came out. I think if you click on the pictures below, you might be able to see one of the ladies emerging.


Finally, we had seven queens in cages. We'd seen and left free one unmarked queen, since I couldn't remember if this was the hive with the marked queen. A few frames later, we came upon the marked queen, just wandering around. We'd missed an already-hatched new queen. The marked, "mother" queen wasn't getting any attention from the bees. No stroking or feeding, so that plus the crowding might be part of the problem. Either she's old or they just don't like her for some reason. We left her alone and figured the bees can work it out. By then, we were also sort of bemused at the ridiculous number of queens we had on hand -- piping along. They were trumpeting their battle-readiness, and it was kind of nice for me to have someone else hear it and certify that I am not nutty. Well, at least that I didn't imagine hearing piping the day before.


There are two queens in that picture above. One of them is winning the popularity contest, and she's covered in bees (oh, go ahead. Click on it!). She was also the loudest -- just beee bee beeing for all she was worth. We decided that she was the queen with the most potential. Therefore, we ended up releasing her (marked, by this time) into the hive again. She moved so quickly I couldn't get a picture of her, but here's how we did it:


It took her "court" a few minutes to realize that she was gone, and then they chased down after her into the new box on top of the hive.


The hive will now either swarm in about ten days, or the shouting Amazon will kill her rivals and start making all things right. We'll see. And I think I'm going to put in an order for some more bee boxes too, just in case. Maybe cardboard nucs.

We lost two of the new, caged queens because they were so small they walked right out of the queen cages. They're not supposed to be that small. Although we looked diligently, we found one and I ended up with three new queens in cages, waiting for new homes. If I had enough equipment, I could start new hives and sell them, I guess. But I don't, so I'm telling all the local keepers that I have new queens -- come and get'em. I hope they do, otherwise I'm going to force them back on Bob and Barb.

By the end of our shenaigans, it was late and chilly. The bees had gotten fairly testy, stinging both of us. I was really grateful for their help. I was also grateful that I'd put kale and sausage soup in the crockpot earlier that day.