Today was the weekly check into my bees. For the last two weeks, I have brought an extra super up to the hives thinking that Queen Penelope's hive would need a new box to move into. She had started to lay in the second super, but I found her back in the bottom super. She had laid about a 1/4 of a frame of brood. There were still 3 frames that the bees had not started to draw out honey comb. They recommend waiting until 6 of 8 are drawn out. So, no new super for Penelope.
When I went into Queen Gertrude's hive, all of the frames in the second super had been drawn out. They are on a roll. It is shocking that she is doing so well seeing as Gertrude's hive was so low on numbers, and she was replaced so late (a good two weeks after Penelope). I'm chalking it up to stealing brood from Penelope, and therefore delaying new workers being born in that hive. Queen Gertrude has taken the lead with 3 supers high.
Queen Gertrude on the left has taken the lead in height. There are an extra 2 supers on top of her stack for storage. She is only living in 3 of the supers.
Queen Gertrude was released from her cage today and has already begun laying. She is easy to spot because she has a bright red mark on her back!
Also, I have been battling wax moths this year. Not sure why they have been so bad, but I have had to remove a frame and put it in the freezer to kill wax moth larvae the last two times I have been in the hive. It may be because I have slightly weakened colonies due to my queen drama. Wax moths can cause irreversible damage to a wax foundation. They build tough webs in the wax foundation making it difficult for the bees to repair. Here is a photo of wax moth damage. I caught mine very early so a photo of mine would just look like little worms. I will spare you a photo of that. They are gross.
Because Queen Cassandra wasn't laying any worker bees, the supplier suggested that I replace her. He provided a new marked queen for me to replace her with. Replacing her is the equivalent to locating her, killing her, and then putting the new queen in the hive. I was so nervous about finding Queen Cassandra again. I haven't been that great at spotting queens, but now that I have had to so many times this season, I think I have it down. I found her with very little difficulty. I can't say the same for catching her. For some reason, I was terrified to grab her. I didn't want to squish her or pull off her wing; although, I planned to chop her head off when I got her out of the hive. I followed her around the frame for 2 minutes trying to grab her. She was just too fast. So I brushed her onto the ground, and scooped her up in a cup...very novice of me. Smashing this bee seemed so counterintuitive. You spend all your time as a beekeeper trying to keep your queen alive, and I was about to kill her. It had to be done, but it was really very sad. I actually cried the whole time I smashed her and the whole time I recorded the below video. I took video because I wanted to share the pumping abdomen so that you all can visualize what happens when you get stung by a honey bee. It was amazing how long her abdomen pumped...probably 4 minutes or so. This is why it is so important to remove the stinger from a sting as soon as it happens. The quicker you remove the stinger; the less venom will be injected.
Queen Cassandra ended up being a drone laying queen. When I started to do some research on this topic, there were several articles talking about the queen being damaged and then laying only drones. I went back to some earlier photos of her and blew them up. Upon closer inspection, her right wing appears to be damaged.
I had to wait for 24 hours before I placed the new queen in the hive. This is so the bees realize they are queenless and don't try to kill the new queen through the queen cage or when she is released. When going into the hive, I heard the telltale sign that a hive is queenless; a roaring buzz. The below video is of the roaring hive when I first went in and video of me placing the new queen into the hive. When I place the queen in the hive, notice how the bees flock to her cage.
