A bad day at the association apiary

[gavin]

One little update. One of the pair of colonies has really nice mild bees that look Amm and didn't prepare to swarm at the drop of a hat unlike my own colonies. Definitely breeding material and the one I was about to graft from. But ... after the two inspections last Sunday and Monday it appears to be queenless. Larvae at the fat grub stage only, and a scattering of queen cells. That is a real pity - I can raise a few queens from the stock and will make sure that they provide drones for queen raising next year, but I really wanted the original queen too.

Maybe the queen was disturbed by the inspection and flew into the neighbouring colony? If she did I guess that she didn't survive the experience.