We had a very interesting queen in our last graft of the season; she had some damaged wings (problems with development? virus?).  This is very bad, because virgin queens mate on the ‘wing’ !!! I was curious to see if the factors that affected her wing development also affected her reproductive abilities.  So I instrumentally inseminated her with sperm from a single drone; half expecting that she will quickly overthrown by her workers.  A month or so later, she is laying like a champ!

Also note the little primitively eusocial sweat bee Halictus confusus sneak into the honey bee cell while i was taking pictures of the queen – very cute!