Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: rober on July 31, 2022, 12:09:25 pm
-
last year i was slow to get to an out yard in the spring to remove the 2" spacer rims that were installed to accommodate hard candy blocks. bees being bees they'd made a lot of wonky comb & there was some brood in it. i scraped it off & shook off the bees as best i could, put the comb in a bucket, & headed home. while unloading the truck i spotted the queen hovering over the bed of my truck. i reached out & plucked her up & put her in a queen clip & took her back to her hive & released her. this was the 2nd time this happened the 1st time i found the queen in the bucket. not knowing which hive she came from i started a nuc & put her in it. when i figured out which hive she was from i reintroduced her.
so now my question. not knowing which hive the queen came from if i had just released her at the hives what are the odds that she'd find her way home.
-
I would say it depends. If she was raised in the hive and took her mating flight (and thus orientation flights) she may have a chance. If introduced, I'd guess slim to none, but I have nothing to back this assumption up.