we inspected bianca's hive on 7/13 and found everything normal. we saw her and lots of capped brood, larva and eggs. when we went into the hive on 7/23 (ten days later) we did not see her, we found at least six queen cups about halfway through their development (which we destroyed). we consulted with peggy and richard about the situation in this hive and they instructed us to check again on 7/25, to see if we could spot the queen and eggs. lawrence found a queen, but she was so small that i could not be sure it was bianca, so we argued about it. we asked peggy to inspect the hive with us on 7/30 and we all spotted a young, blond queen. peggy thinks this a successor to bianca, but very young and probably not even properly mated yet. we think that the hive swarmed in mid-July, but went unnoticed by the nursery staff. peggy recommends that we give her another week or so to see if she's started laying eggs. fine. we went into the hive on 7/9 and saw no sign of eggs, larva or anything, but did make this video of bianca II in action. what she is doing is a mystery to all of us. totally backwards for a queen, or as some might say, un-ladylike. we will check on her again in a week to see if we can spot any eggs. if not, it's time to re-queen. urrrgghh! sometimes, beekeeping is a conundrum!
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