Happy Mother's Day, girls!

My little nuc welcomes a new Russian queen just in time to celebrate Mother's Day.

It's my last little nuc of spring, or so I keep telling myself. My goal this year was to  have all hives queen-right before the flow AND host two extra queen bees, just in case. Easier said than done.

It's not the bees that were the problem; I had to get my mind around what colony had what queen swarm cells and when they might be hatching, a guess as good as divining with a crystal ball. Or so it seems.

After a number of different combinations, Mother's Day approached with only one nuc being queenless. It was a small number of bees so I was getting ready to combine them with a larger colony when I was able to buy a new Russian queen.

She's in the little white plastic queen tube with several worker bee attendants, waiting for worker bees to help her chew her way out of the sugar tube stopper.

I gave them a little help this morning by removing some of the sugar. After all, it is Mother's Day.

Happy Mother's Day, girls!

Charlotte