Death of the Monarch

Well, it's not all sunshine and honey in a beehive.  Unfortunately, sometimes bad things happen, and in our "Hive 1", we lost our queen.  It's not uncommon for bees to supercede their old queen during the first year, likely because they have recently settled down from the stress of being packaged and shipped across the country, and are replacing the queen because they feel she is responsible.  Anyways, when Erin and I went to the hives the other day, we discovered 6-8 queen cells on a couple of different frames.

These elongated, almost peanut shaped cells contain new queens.  If this wasn't the first year, and I hadn't gotten such a late start on the hives this spring, I would let them do their own thing, and raise their own new queen.  However, since these queens are anywhere from 16-20 days away from laying eggs, we're not going to wait. I've ordered a new queen who will be here tomorrow, at which point we will destroy all of the queen cells in that hive and install a new queen.  Within 3 days or so, she will be released to the hive and start laying eggs.  This will help to lessen the lag time between new bees being hatched, and hopefully help this hive to be able to survive the winter.

It is unfortunate to lose the queen, and have to requeen so early in the game, however, we'll keep on pushing, and get these girls settled.