Don’t Want to Offend A New Queen…
I performed a split at the end of June With the hopes that the queen less colony would develop queen cells from the visible eggs in multiple brood frame. To my excitement, they created 8 queen cells which I timed to potentially erupt on July 6-8. Unfortunately, I went on vacation July 5 so I am not completely sure when she erupted, but today during my inspection I found a new queen. There are no visible eggs or larva. I caught her in queen catcher, but when I went to get my marking pen and plunger she escaped from the catcher. Luckily I left it on top of the frames in the brood box.
Two questions.
If a queen escapes a queen catcher is that an indication that her abdomen is not enlarged and may not have gone on her mating flight yet?
should you wait to mark a queen after she has begun laying eggs?
Thanks for the quick feedback. Based on your advice, I will hold off in doing additional inspections for a couple more weeks since it is likely she emerged around July 8.
Based on my observations and timing of the capped queen cells (QC), I thought it was likely a queen emerged and may have taken her mating flight. When she slipped out of the cage, I was surprised and was looking for a potential root cause. She seemed to be of comparable size (length) to other queens.
Once again, thanks.