A Queen Experiment

As I was strolling through my Facebook feed, I noticed my friend Susan had posted that she found this Queen in her bee yard surrounded by about 10 workers. It's suspected as a cast off swarm but it could very well be a mated Queen. Our Hive 4 has been struggling. I noticed they had lost their Queen, I made an attempt to add two frames of eggs and brood but to no avail, they are just a dumb bunch of girls in there! 

I quickly answered my friend that I was looking for a queen and she said I could have her! She offered to rush her over and she did. I gave her a couple of drops of honey which she promptly devoured. She looks healthy, her abdomen is swollen, so she may have just mated.

My friend plugged the hole with a marshmallow so I taped the end and placed a rubber band over it to keep her in there for a few days. In no time the workers came up to see what was going on. This one is cleaning up some of the leftover honey.

Soon many of the bees where coming up to investigate and I am sure they are detecting her pheromones as well.

As I watched, more arrived! We will leave her in the queen cage for a few days. At this point if we were to introduce her, they would kill her. I will revisit in a day or so to see if they are tending to her, fingers crossed!