Today UPS brought me a new Italian queen and some attendant bees with her in the queen cage. I removed the candy cork, put the cage in my bee suit pocket, and went out to the KTBH. When I moved the follower board back to remove the old queen cage, the cage was covered with bees. I shook off the bees and TADA! there was the queen, blue dot on her back, buzzing around. Apparently she was not dead and had been merely pining for the fjords. Pulled the cork on the other end and put everything back together. I will check again this afternoon to make sure she is out.
Now what to do with an extra queen.
New comb, dead center on the bar
Something like this happened to me but with a whole hive, I check the hive one day after a cold snap and it looked dead, I put it back together mopped around for a day then went out to clean up and presto! Hive was active and queen was laying. I hope yours can still lay
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