The Mysterious Ways of Bees

this is an update to the situation in bianca's hive - despite our efforts to intercede and provide a mated queen to the hive, when we inspected the hive on 9/14, we found a wild queen, not the yellow-marked queen we had purchased, in control of the hive. as usual, the bees were as quiet and contented as we had ever seen them. we spotted her in the third deep, running around.  she is very big, and rotund - signs pointing to her having mated successfully, in spite of the lateness of the season.  we thought we had  also seen a few eggs in cells and some milky substance in the bottom of cells. a week later, 9/21, we inspected the hive again and saw two frames of brood with eggs and larva in the second deep. we spotted the queen again and she looked very fit and happy, obviously laying eggs and doing her best to boost the population of this hive for winter.  it is really a miracle that she was able to mate at all, given how late in the season it was. so, for now, we have a new queen and we have decided to name her Catherine the Great, since the Russian Catheine also had to overcome great obstacles on her way to becoming one of the greatest rulers of that country. the next hurdle for this hive is to repeat a mite treatment.  we did a mite drop on a board in that hive a week ago, and found that there were nearly 60 mites on the board in a 48-hour period. this is a rate that requires treatment, especially before winter, when all the bees will be housebound and very susceptible to mite infestation. we've decided to treat them with apilifevar, a product that is not associated with extensive bee mortality. the population of this hive has dwindled, due to their issues with queens, and we would like to be sure to knock down the mites, but leave as many bees alive in the process.  we will update our main page with a picture of Catherine asap!