There is a New Lady in Town
When I started keeping bees I was told to always have two hives so you can compare the two. It has always worked well for me. As I told in a previous post, one of my first packages of bees was always less active than the other. The less active one eventually died off. The hive that was so strong last year was looking weaker this year. When I got another package I could really see how less active they were. They were continuing to make honey so I hoped they would get stronger. I noticed them trying to make some queen cells early in the summer and thought they were going to swarm so I got rid of the queen cells. That was my mistake. I think they knew their queen was weak and were raising some knew ones to challenge her. Bees are smart like that. So a few weeks ago I went through the entire hive looking for the queen or evidence of the queen, brood cells and eggs. But none were found, just pollen and honey see the photos below. So I went and bought a new impregnated queen from the local h