I had made up 3 new colonies from Sarah in May, and recent inspections hadn’t looked favourable - no sign of laying queens in 2, and a vanished colony in the third - there appear to have been 2 queen hatches, both of which had virgin swarmed with the flying bees, leaving only a cupful of worker bees, waiting to be merged back onto Sarah.
I’d expected the other 2 to have laying queens nearly 3 weeks ago, and after seeing no sign of eggs or queens last Saturday, I stuck in new eggs and queen cells from Sarah (who is showing signs of wanting to swarm) and left them to it.
Of course, today I find both packed with eggs and larvae, and the new queen cells gone. I was reminded that all of the parent queens were slow to start laying, so perhaps this is just a trait of this line. At least it now means things are back on track - though Sarah looks to want splitting again some time this week as she keeps throwing up new queen cells, even with plenty of space with the recent merge.
