We checked the colonies where we’d found two queens and moved one to a queenless hive: The original hive was left with the new queen and this was doing very well with lots of eggs and brood at all stages. The mother queen (Queen Mother?) had been placed in an introduction cage in a queenless colony. She was now out and walking around quite confidently – BUT no eggs. We were hoping that she might still be laying and might produce enough for her new family to utilise in making queen cells. Sadly it seems she has has stopped laying altogether. We’ll give it another few days and then unite the colony with another…

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!