Five Queens a "piping"

Five new Italian Cordovan Queen Bees arrived via UPS yesterday after traveling from Ohio.  Fortunately they all looked healthy and active despite being held an extra day in a warehouse due to a screwup by UPS.

The first thing I did after opening the box was to give them all a few drops of water and honey.  Then I noticed the high pitched noises that new queens make.  Kind of like a trumpeting sound it's called "piping".  When there's several queens in a hive after queen cells hatch, this sound is heard ... a battle cry of sorts you could say.  Turn the volume up in the video and you should be able to hear the piping sounds.  Pretty cool.

Not only did we think it was cool, our cat was fascinated by the piping bees.