The regicide hive continues to have issues.  I do not know what the workers were thinking when they convinced the attendants to murder their mistress, but it appears all their plans have gone awry every since.  Though switching places with one of the outer hives has helped population in this hive, it has just caused population problems due to drifting in the now center hive.  In an attempt to fix this I have staggered the hive positions a bit and slightly altered entrance angles.  I hope it will be enough.  I don't have all that much room to work with, so I need to make do.  One of the challenges of urban beekeeping.

I had bee class this morning and let the instructors know what was going on. They seemed to think that either the last queen I put in was a virgin or it was laying drones. They gave me a new queen to put in with the caveat that if the bees were still biting and stinging the cage after 4 days I should call them and get a capped swarm cell instead of a caged queen.  The reasoning being that newly hatched queens are always accepted by the hive.

Despite the problems with this hive I have two that are going strong, so thats nice to see. Also better than one couple in my class. They installed their two packages yesterday and then, in the nigh, bear assault!  Luckily they didn't lose their queens or have too much stuff eaten, but they did mess up some frames and tear one super in two.  At least bears are one thing I don't have to worry about in the city.  Raccoons on the other hand...

Anyway, I took the above pictures when I went back in to put in the new caged queen. I found 3 supersedure cells with large larva in them.  Yesterday I added a frame of eggs and open brood from one of the stronger hives and  the bees were starting to build another 3 queen cells on that frame. I cut out the supersedure cells before stapling the queen cage in place. Third day I have been in this hive and still no visual on the queen and no eggs in any of the cells. Hopefully this one takes!