Jon

Found another queen laying in an apidea this afternoon.
This was one which came from an emergency queen cell made by the bees in the apidea after they killed their queen for some reason in early September.
It emerged 25 days ago so was cutting things fine.
It actually looks ok for a queen from an apidea emergency cell, a wee bit small but perfectly acceptable.
there are still a few drones about and I have been checking this apidea every couple of days since mid September. It always had about 10 drones in the Apidea so that was likely a good strategy for getting a queen mated late on.
The apidea was at our mating apiary so the drones she mated with should be good. I would be surprised to hear of any yellow drones on the wing at this time of year.