Queen puzzle 2

[Jon]

On Monday evening 4th July we has a meeting of our queen rearing group.
I demonstrated how to remove a queen from an apidea and put her in an introduction cage with attendants.
I marked and clipped the queen and we introduced her to a queenless colony.

The queenless apidea was returned to its stand. It is the only apidea at that site.

On Thursday Alan the owner of the apidea brought it round to get another queen cell put in. I has a virgin just hatched in a roller cage so I put that in for 24 hours and released her the next day. The apidea was closed up until this point. The bees started to ball her and I had to put her back in the cage.
I checked the apidea and there was a black unmarked queen in it which had started to lay.
It didn't come from one of my apideas it it had been closed.

Some time between Monday evening and Thursday afternoon a queen took up residence in the apidea and started to lay.

On the same Monday evening I had checked a nuc of mine 200 yards away from the apiary where we held our queen rearing meeting. This nuc had a black virgin queen which was due to start laying. The nuc was a bit tetchy and I could see no sign of the virgin queen.

Hmmm. But it gets worse.

Yesterday evening I took a mated queen from one of my apideas with a view to requeening this nuc which had lost its black queen. I cycled over to the other apiary about three miles away and got there about 7 0 clock.

Second frame in I found this.

sealed brood.jpg

Great. So my queen has started to lay. I must have missed her the week before.

A couple of frames later.

early supersedure cell.jpg

The curse of Roger Patterson - an early supersedure cell.

And then I found the queen, on the next frame.

strange queen.jpg

But this is a banded queen with a white spot!

Ok. So a marked queen flew into my nuc and took it over after it lost its virgin, which seems to have moved to an apidea 200 yards away.

Good theory but this queen has its left wing clipped!

Tim has a colony about 20 feet away and he mentioned to me that his new queen had started to lay but the colony was making supersedure cells. He also mentioned that he had marked and clipped her. He is in Donegal until the weekend so can confirm or deny that that is his queen on his return. I reckon his colony swarmed leaving a supersedure cell and his queen dropped in the grass and made its way into my nuc. The grass is over a foot long so it must have been an epic journey. The bees must have been fanning to draw her in.

Musical chairs or what.
So Alan ends up with a daughter of a 100% AMM queen, I get a scabby mongrel which they want to supersede, and Tim will have to check what is under the crown board of his colony at the weekend.

The timing just about works to have sealed brood in my nuc. The marked queen must have entered on Tuesday and I saw the brood the following Wednesday evening. I doubt if I missed seeing a clearly marked queen on the Monday although I was looking for an unmarked black one and that can put you off.