New queen is in!! This one was packed differently than the others I've gotten. Still in the little woodblock cage like normal, but then that was taped inside a deli container with a little wet sponge and some marshmallows. And instead of 4-5 attendants in with her, there were probably a couple dozen loose in the deli container. A good setup to keep dead attendants from blocking the queen's escape, provide her with more attendants, and give them a supply of food and water.
It is very windy and a bit rainy today, so I would've preferred to wait until tomorrow to put her in the hive, but it's supposed to be worse all weekend. There was nothing to keep the attendants separate from the bees already in the hive, so I was a little worried they'd get attacked. I held the container up to the hive for a few minutes to see if there'd be any aggression, but everyone seemed chill, so I opened the container to let them get a better sniff of each other. A couple attendants did get attacked initially, but were let go, and once the hive figured out there was a queen in there, they were pretty amenable to the newcomers. A bunch of bees started making their way over, some were fanning to spread queen pheromones already. I didn't see any more aggressive behavior, so I went ahead and wedged the queen cage between a couple frames. Kept an eye on them for a couple more minutes and everything was looking good, so I closed the hive up.
I think they're gonna be fine, but I won't won't know for sure until I check in a few days that she's been released and again a while after that to make sure she's laying well and mark her. I won't say we're back at two hives quite yet, but it's looking good. Also peep my lovely orange-handled hive tool, it's so pretty
