July
16th,
2008
Disaster! A capped queen cell found on one of the edge frames today.I’d not inspected for 8 days, and today found the capped queen cell. A search of the hive found no sign of the old queen, but also no sign of a swarm - the population was still as large as the week before. Have to assume that the queen has been killed, damaged, or there are plans to supersede her.
There’s only the one queen cell, and it looks of the emergency type (central on the frame, not at the bottom, and long and thin, not short and fat).
Time to seal up the hive for a month to let the new queen hatch, and get mated. Hopefully the wet weather won’t interfere with this.
