Notes from the hive: August 21, 2018

I was carrying out a standard inspection yesterday and noticed a queen that was, strangely, unmarked & unclipped. (I mark & clip all my queens). I didn’t have queen marking pen or scissors so carried on with the inspection. Two frames later I saw a queen, marked red (this year’s colour). A perfect supersedure no doubt. Since I had already inspected a queenless colony the “red queen” went into an introduction cage and into the queenless hive. Let’s see what happens!