We’re lucky in the San Francisco Bay Area, weather-wise, and bees here get started early in the season. During a spate of spring weat...
New Queen Bee Flora III

We’re lucky in the San Francisco Bay Area, weather-wise, and bees here get started early in the season. During a spate of spring weather last week we opened up the Flora hive and found what appeared to be a new queen! If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll remember that we found a new queen in Flora just last summer. Or anyhow, we thought she was a new queen.

But this new queen we found the other day is definitely new for 2011. Or at least, we think she is. She looks different: darker and smaller than the original Flora 2. Why did they make a new queen? Only the bees know for sure.

We’re hoping they didn’t swarm already, leaving behind this new queen. We’ve got a swarm trap (which is really a nuc box) on the roof of our garage, but so far nobody has moved in. So if they swarmed, they spurned our nuc box.

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