Are You Smarter Than A ...

One of the shows we like to watch at home is "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" We marvel at how people can be stumped by such simple questions.

Well, at the hives, apparently I am a contestant in:

Are You Smarter Than A Queen Bee?

I went out this afternoon to visit the "queenless" green hive, to make double-dog sure and see how it was doing. Last week I would have given away one of my kids (only the cranky one, though) on a sure bet that the hive had no queen. Well, I looked in the lower box, and saw some uncapped brood, and hey, it actually looked younger than it did on Wednesday. What?!?

I then pulled some frames on the top box, and saw even younger larvae, at about 4 days old. I looked on a few more frames, and lo and behold, I saw Her Majesty on a frame! It was the same marked (with a green dot) queen. Boy, has she been sneaky! She must be very good at hiding from me, as on Wednesday I went frame by frame looking for her. I guess she decided to stop laying for a while, but now it looks like she is back at it. I didn't go frame by frame today, but she is back in the top box and laying like a son-of-a-gun. Keep going, baby!

Since that hive looks to be doing well, I decided to put on a honey super. Hope springs eternal, so they say!!

I also checked out the brown hive, and that one is still queenless. I saw the queen cell, and it looked like it may have hatched, but I didn't want to go poking around too much. I'll give the brown hive some more time to see if she makes her own queen. If not, at least the green hive is a source of eggs I could move over if I need to.

It's a good thing I am not really in charge with these hives - I'd make a bungle of it for sure!!