Today, yet again, I destroyed swarm cells. Many, many, many. Above, you can see a perfect example of a swarm cell. There is a potential queen bee in that puffed out cell. Also, you can see a few of the milky white grubs which I picked out of other similar cells. Mildly horrific, but it is important to get 'em before they hatch. I think - as I am certain that I've missed a few over the summer - that my queen has been fighting off these newly spawned rivals. I hope she has, and I hope she continues to do so, for two reasons:
1. Her colony is not prepared to swarm, so she needs to keep them home. Should it swarm now, both the swarm and the vacated hive will be ill prepared for winter. Neither would survive.
2. She's too young to succumb to a new queen! She's a year old and she's a good layer.
Fascinatingly, after I knocked out all the queens that I could locate, I sealed up the hive and watched as the diligent workers dragged the dead bodies to the outside of the hive. They tossed them out onto the grass below, and immediately, I saw a wasp close in and devour one of the dead queens. It was amazing - out of nowhere! (Wasps are predators of bees and will invade hives, chewing off the wing and leg muscles of the bees before taking them away and eating them.) Check that out here.
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