Amazing things I've learned recently about Queen Bees

The Queen's body is twice the length of the worker bees and with a tapered point.

In a colony of bees, only the Queen can lay eggs that will become females, that is, future worker bees and future queens.  The worker bees can also lay eggs, but they are unfertilized and that makes them males, or drones, which have only a small function in the survival of the colony.  When the colony wishes to raise new queens, they form a special droplet shape form of honey comb and they feed the larvae there royal jelly, a substance worker bees secrete from a gland on their head.  The queen is fed this royal jelly directly to her mouth throughout her life, it is all that she eats.  Regular bee larvae are fed a diet of honey and pollen known as bee bread.  In Southern California wild bees are Africanzied, the so called killer bees.  They are more aggressive than european honey bees.  Capturing a wild hive, rescuing it from an undesirable place on someone's property, is a great way to support the bees in this time of crisis for bee populations.  But a rescued colony of bees should be re-queened to help calm there genetic disposition. If you replace an African Queen  with a European Queen, in about a month the genetics of the entire colony will be transformed!  You order a Queen from a bee breeder, in the Spring you can go ahead and order a whole colony of bees, thousands of bees and a queen, or you can just order a queen who is shipped in a tiny cage with a few attendant bees who feed her and keep her alive.  They are kept in their cage with a candy or sugar plug that they slowly eat.  Replacing the Queen isn't easy, you can't just drop her in the hive, they won't recognize her and they will kill her.  First you must find the existing Queen and execute her.  Finding the Queen is like playing a very complicated game of Where's Waldo, but in this game you have to wear lots of heavy clothes and all of the Waldo's can sting you!  It has recently taken me three hive inspections to finally discover my queen, pull her out, and give her the royal smoosh.  Once you have eliminated the queen, you leave the hive without a queen.  The bees will begin to detect her absence, they will know that there is no longer a Queen I they will try to raise a Queen by feeding royal jelly to some of the larvae.  After a few days you place the new queen in to the hive, but still in her cage.  The bees will begin to smell her pheromones and after a few days of eating at the sugar plug, it will open up and she will be released from her cage.  Hopefully they have grown accustom to her scent and will accept her as they know they are in need of a Queen.  You must manage there possible creation of new Queen cells, pinching them off and discarding them.  If new Africanized Queens emerge, they will probably kill the new queen.  In a half hour I will drop my queen into her new hive and say a prayer for her success and survival.  My Queen has been neglected, it has been so difficult for me to find the feral queen that my poor European Queen has been in her cage a week.  She is still alive with one attendant, but the other attendants are in a pile on the bottom of the cage, dead.

Work is made easier with new gloves and a frame gripping tool

A happy comb!

Placing the Queen cage in the comb, this work also made easier with new technology, a rack made of cinder blocks

The beeswax easily holds on to the plastic cage

Replacing the top bars, I numbered them so I won't make a mistake

Smoking the bees as I press the bars together so as not to squish any bees

Well I opened the hive, so much brood cell!  A drastic difference from what I have been seeing in my other hive.  I didn't see any queen cells forming yet.  I installed the Queen in the middle of the hive in comb with lots of brood cells.  I reunited with an old friend from high school and he got some photos as well as a video in which I am so excited by what I see I am basically at a loss for words.

In 2 or 3 days I'll open the hive again and see if the Queen has been released from her cage.

Blessings tos the Queen, may she be healthy and vital for many moons.