The release of the Queens!

After the threat of rain this morning I fired up the smoker and headed up to the hives to see if the queens had been released. All 3 queens were still in their queen cages.

I am also absolutely amazed at the quality and size of the drones! They are the size of miniature chihuahuas for gosh sakes! The big eyed honeybees in the picture are drones.

Here is a queen after being marked. This year we will mark all the queens blue as per the international code. It makes it easier to find her amongst thousands of bees and tells us she is a 2015 queen. We will revisit in a few days to make sure all is well with the queens and hives.