The Dallas Texas Master Gardener program (Texas A&M University) is taking over a new (to them) property – but an old dynamite shed on the land has had honeybees in the walls of it – off and on – for the last 25-30 years. After being called out to evaluate the situation, and starting the removal this morning – it was evident that (a) the hive had recently swarmed. and (b) the new queen (if there was one) had not laid ANY eggs yet. There was some emerging drone brood in the hive, but NO worker brood or freshly laid eggs or larvae. The population of the hive was LOW – and there were a LOT of drones. I presumed at that point that there was not a queen present. I removed all the comb, and started vacuuming bees. Afterwards, I was placing lids on my buckets of old comb, and saw a queen! I went through the bucket looking for her – and eventually found her. Not too big – maybe freshly mated. I’m leaving her in a nuc with attendants overnight to collect up the remainder of the flying bees – and they’ll make it to the farm tomorrow afternoon.
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