Here’s a good example of a queen that isn’t doing a good job. Queens get it on in flight, and this Spring has been a rollercoaster of weird weather. I think this lady wasn’t mated properly-her laying is all over the place and she’s shooting blanks-laying eggs that turn into drones.
The thing to do here is replace her, but I HATE HUNTING DOWN A QUEEN. HATE. It’s literally finding a needle in a haystack-tedious, sweaty, and frustrating.
So, I tried an experiment with this hive-I put a queen excluder (mesh that workers can pass through but the queen can’t) in between each box and waited a week. This way, I can ID which box she’s in, so the search takes much less time.
I was a little nervous going in today! But, I’m happy to report I found her (and squished her) in less than 10 minutes today. ☠️ Now to find this colony a new queen before they get too ornery 😬
