Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Week 5.3: Meet the New Queen


Khaki hive has a new queen and she is lovely.

When I created the Khaki hive (named for the sandy-colored paint that I found leftover in the garage), I pulled a frame from the parent hive that had queen cells already waiting to emerge. A few days later, there she was. It was a good way to jump-start a new hive rather than dumping bees into a box and waiting for them to make a new queen (aka a walk-away split).

This new queen appears to have gotten out, done her mating flight and come home to start laying eggs. I'll soon need to add a second box to keep up with her. I'll also mark her with a blue dot to signify that she was born this year. (Last year's queen have green dots on them.)

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