2026-05-21A - Saved queen to be replaced again. Maybe 2 queens the colony.

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Good morning and welcome to the BP Pete Beekeeping channel where we love to do everything beekeeping. 21st of May 2026 colony inspections. Starting with the first colony. Always have a good look in the front. They seem to be hindered by the greenery, but they're okay. Hey, girly.

[00:00:23]Just seems to be pollen coming in and out, which is a good sign. Pollen's the sign that the queen is is working hard and she's laying up for your bees. Here we go. Let's have a quick look inside. See get confirmation that they are okay.

[00:00:45]Smoker is a light.

[00:00:49]I'll put it a bit further away cuz I don't want to start them up funky. Uh there is nothing in here. There's no feed or anything.

[00:01:02]We always check the inside of the lid just to make sure there's no queen.

[00:01:05]Queeny is marked. She was out of a colony that was going to supersede her.

[00:01:11]And so, as they were going to supersede her, I found her and took her out. And since then, they have raised a new queen. And they've all been good from there.

[00:01:24]Weirdly, I keep getting slugs in here.

[00:01:28]I don't know how they're getting in. So, there's no holes or gaps or anything else.

[00:01:33]We're going to remove this frame right at the end because there's nothing on it apart from some meandering bees. It's just an old frame just to fill the gap.

[00:01:44]No queeny on there. Put the frame near the entrance somewhere just in case.

[00:01:56]Gently take the frame out.

[00:02:00]Okay. So, we see brood. So, we can see there's a play cup there. So, the play cup in the middle here. So, when they're thinking about making another queen, they prepare and they make a cup. Now, if you have a look in the cup, there's actually nothing in there. So, if I open it up properly, what they normally do is put an egg in the bottom. They fill it full of uh they put l in it, fill it full of raw jerry and just literally overfeed it and it makes a queen. So she eats for about 4 days if that's the case. I mean I'm expecting them to replace her at some point, but hopefully she's got a bit longer.

[00:02:40]Let's put the frame down.

[00:02:42]Okay, separate off the next one.

[00:02:49]We are looking calm at the minute.

[00:02:53]Okay. Wow, it's nice big patch of brood.

[00:02:57]That brood's doing very well. So, we can see the brood area is running all the way through this middle section here.

[00:03:03]And we can see this is capt. That little knobble there in the middle is drone brood, oddly. So, drone brood is slightly bigger. Takes a bit longer to cook cuz it be birthday in there. It's a bee. Happy birthday. Let's just move everyone else.

[00:03:21]And so that section there is laid up with eggs and larae.

[00:03:26]So the eggs will will get fed and then they will turn to larae and after 6 or 8 days they get capped over so they can comp.

[00:03:36]Normally work bees is the bulk of the the colony. So this side is is looking good.

[00:03:42]So if we just take a look in here. So we can see tiny tiny eggs that are turning to live egg just there.

[00:03:51]Absolutely tiny. Come on girlies.

[00:03:58]So no queenie on there. So queenie should be marked. She is marked with a yellow dot. The reason why is because I couldn't find the correct pen. Okay. So, I did put this frame in last week and I put it just in the very middle. It was on the end. Uh, it was just to fill in the gap really. Uh, they've drawn out those cells now. So, you can see there's a bit of height to those cells. There's not too much stores in here so far. There's a little bit on the outer side again this side. It's okay, but there's no I mean, there's one there's one lonely egg in the middle there. Uh, and that's it. Under that worker there, there are no, in fact, there are a couple a couple more. Maybe her laying pattern isn't great, then it's not solid. Particularly, those cells really aren't that well built yet. So, I can't see anything on that back side, but they're back. So, they're working that. Notice that this frame doesn't have spacing on it. Uh, it was just a spare frame that we had kicking around.

[00:05:07]at the time.

[00:05:13]Next frame. Lovely big pattern of brood there. It's huge. In fact, that's all laid up with eggs in the middle. But yeah, they're doing well. So, fresh nectar, wet nectar coming in over here.

[00:05:25]So, they'll fan that off. They'll evaporate off the excess water and bring it down to about 18% humidity. And then when it's down there, uh, they can then cap it over. And the wax capping on the top causes it to stay super saturated with sugars and it doesn't take in any water then and all is good.

[00:05:50]But there's another one here. Here there's actually there's actually look up here right on the edge.

[00:06:02]So, if we look here, there's a cup there, which has got an egg in it.

[00:06:11]Let me just open that one up a bit better so we can see on the inside.

[00:06:18]Yeah, there's actually an egg right in the bottom of that cup. But also, there's a cup here that I must have missed last week. um that has emerged which would say that queen has probably been replaced.

[00:06:39]I mean, I said she was a super seedure queen. So, that cup there, see, it's been ripped. So, it's probably emerged.

[00:06:46]And when it's emerged, then the new queen has come out and she has escaped within the hive somewhere. Probably the old queen is now now dead. But there are eggs. There are eggs in that middle section. So, potentially we might see the scenario where we've got two queens in one hive, the mother. And what is there for the daughter?

[00:07:13]Very sneaky girlies. I'm going to have to run the video back there and see what was on that last that last frame. In fact, there is the old queen.

[00:07:24]I think she's on her last leg. She's going to be replaced. Might just leave her to do her thing and then replace replace her. She is due for replacement.

[00:07:37]Sorry, girly.

[00:07:39]Can't hear any piping. So, the piping is where the the new queen will start.

[00:07:44]I think she vibrates the whole colony stops. You see that? You can hear this kind of squeak within the fing box.

[00:07:50]Plenty of bee bread here. So, they're bringing in the pollen they're mixing up with the nectar. And this is what feeds the baby bees.

[00:08:01]Anyway, yeah. So, this is probably the last we're going to see this queenie.

[00:08:04]Queenie, you did well. H you are one year old now. You're being tended to still, but I don't think you can have much life left in you now. So, thank you.

[00:08:23]Right, let's put them all back together.

[00:08:30]Okay, shuffle you all along.

[00:08:36]these gloves clearly are not tightened today.

[00:08:40]Next one.

[00:08:44]Last frame, which is just a spare frame.

[00:08:46]So, I can go on the end over the roof on and big brick so it doesn't fly away.

[00:09:02]Okay, so that's quite an interesting one. So, we did see the old queen. She's going to be replaced and superseded by new queen. This is the second time this has happened to her. So, first time I caught it, took the queen out and put her in this colony from the colony that's down there, but I don't think she's got much life left in her. So, thank you for watching. Please do comment, rate, like, subscribe, share, all the good things, and I will see you on the next one. Thank you.