While inspecting this crazy nuc that I got some weeks back, it appeared they had more queen cells. I found a queen cell with an emerging queen and quickly put in a nuc box and closed it up. I gave them 2 days to get acclimated with what I thought was their new queen and went up today to let her out for her mating flight. I found this queen cell that was not the one I had put the frame in the box for, with what appears to be an emerged queen from it.
This was the queen cell I had originally seen in swarm position, where the other queen cell was in the superseder position. I found her deceased as if they just ignored her sadly.
Here is the virgin queen, they were nurturing her. You can tell because her abdomen is not full of eggs. They are fattening her up and getting her ready for her breeding flight. She will leave the hive just one time to breed with anywhere from 8 to 10 drones. These drones will sacrifice their life for the chance to breed just one time and then they will die.
This image even defines her better and shows her attendants ready for her every need. I'm hoping this is the end of that nuc wanting to split! I'm running out of hives!
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