Mississippi Queen

This is one of our new white-dotted queens from Derwin Thrash, a friend in Mississippi. She was installed in a nucleus hive about 10 days ago, and I confirmed today that she had been accepted by the hive. She has just started to lay eggs and establish some brood. In fact, in this photo she is pulling her abdomen from a cell, into which she has just deposited an egg. It’s nice to have queens that just go about their business, even when their hive is being opened up by an intruder. That’s quite a circle of attendants she has around her, don’t you think?

Derwin called me yesterday to check on how the queens are doing and I was happy to tell him that, so far, all have been accepted by their respective hives. More checking tomorrow.