Queen Bees #3 and #5

Had a peek inside the two hives to see what was happening. The queens are in their locked cages, laid on top of the comb frames.

I have no experience whatsoever to judge the situation but MrB had told me to look if the worker bees seemed to be interested in the queen, walking over the cage quietly. If they appeared to be trying to attack her through the holes, there would be a problem.

I judged them to be quiet and decided to start the release procedure. This means picking out the cage, removing the stopper at one end and filling it with a sugar fondant/paste. This is placed back on the frames and the worker bees then eat away the sugar, eventually freeing the queen and allowing her to descend on to the combs and start laying eggs.

Didn't start well - I did the job without any protective gear (hat or gloves). On taking out the first cage, a worker bee flew on to the back of my neck and got trapped between skin and shirt collar. Luckily I seem to suffer little from bee stings! However the rest all went well and now the queens should be free and at work.

Will not inspect the hives for a few days. There is always the danger when inspecting that one will squash the queen while handling and moving frames, so I would rather she laid a few eggs first. A queen can lay 2000 eggs a day!

Hive with Queen #5 seems very relaxed - a good sign. Hive with #3 has a great deal more bees in it so more activity and for me a bit more difficult to judge. One danger is that in the "queenless" time the worker bees started to lay eggs themselves - these can only result in male drones but more importantly the laying worker bees won't accept a new queen.

Fingers crossed for #3.