General Discussions

Had an interesting thing happen this morning. I was marking a new queen and everything was going like normal. I was able to capture her in the marking plunger, I removed the worker bees and then I marked her by pushing the plunger up and gently pushing down on the top so that she would be immobilized as I marked her. I marked her and kept the pressure on for just a few seconds then I released the plunger so that she could move around while the paint dried without worry about the paint smearing. The thing is, she didn't move. My heart skipped several beats and I said some choice things but I could not think of anything that I did wrong. I kept her in the cage and put her aside while I finished the inspection. All the time thinking what to do. After the inspection, I noticed that she was moving a little and I could see what looked like breathing. I still kept her in the cage but laid the cage on top of the frames. I went a did another inspection and after that inspection I came back to check on the progress. To my surprise, she was moving around in the cage like normal. I opened the cage and she walks out and down into the hive like nothing happened. I did a search on google about this and it seems that it is a common thing to happen.

Has this happened to others in HCBA? This was a new one for me and I thought others would like to know what can happen and not to panic.