Do We Have a Virgin Queen? - Beekeeping at Mantel Farm 2022

After all of our issues with swarming from our WBC colony, Roger and Josh check in to see whether or not they've managed to rear up a new queen in attempt to try and stop the swarming.
The idea of removing the queen and giving her to a queenless colony is the last resort for that particular queen. She can now provide queen pheromone and brood to a failing colony and we've used a queen cell the parent colony (WBC) made to replace the original queen.
This may not work entirely due her genetics being from the original queen but we believe she was probably getting low on pheromone and the bees were well aware of this and therefore wanted to swarm whilst they had a viable queen. This is very common with older queens - one of the reasons to change your queens every year or every other year.

[@emmadean643]

Brilliant!

[@ME_MeAndMyBees]

She's mid upper Frame at 8.08 Timeline, if I am not mistaken.
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Happy Beekeeping 2023
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[@MantelFarm]

You spotted her! I can't believe we didn't. It's incredible how easily you can miss her sometimes. Especially when she is a virgin and unmarked. It seems deliberately looking for her makes it harder.

[@richardevans3084]

If you suspect there’s Virgin in Hive .Don’t Disturb

[@MantelFarm]

Hi Richard, I will mention this when we next film.