I have 11 apideas with virgin queens in my front garden at the moment.
I took this video about half an hour ago with the temperature about 12c.
You can see the bees pushing the queen encouraging her to take a flight.
She runs up the right hand side of the apidea, takes off and then lands back in the apidea after about 30 seconds and goes back in.
This one was grafted on 19th May and emerged 31st May.
She has been stuck in the apidea ever since and is approaching her sell by date.
I would say she has about a week left to get in a mating flight before going stale.
The mother of this one was the last queen I got mated last autumn and is a supersedure queen. She started laying on 1st October.
Bookmarks