Can't Keep a Girl Around

I am a little behind on the on-going story.  Looks like either I killed the queen during the March inspection or she just ran out of juice because the next time I was out there, a couple weeks later, I couldn't find a queen or any signs of one; no eggs, no larva, only some old, capped brood.  Bummer.  It was still too early in the year to get a decent local queen so I figured I would have to get a southern queen and then requeen that hive again in the summer.  I ended up not being able to find a queen quickly but found a guy close buy that was getting some packages so I ended up getting a couple of packages so I could also get my in-laws hive going again.  I installed the package and everything seemed ok.  The next day I went  the in-law's house to do theirs and as I am pulling the cork out of the queen cage I notice a bee gets out.  Oh no, this is a slightly different cage than the other packages I have gotten.  As I am there looking at it I wondered if the queen had gotten out.  Oh crap! Yes, there she goes flying right in front of me!  How stupid was that?  I try grabbing it out of the air as she slowly circled by but by the second time around she was out of reach.  What could I do?  I closed up the hive and headed home.

On the way home I start thinking, "did I do it the wrong way on the other hive also?"  The next weekend I went out and yep, no queen.  Darn it!  Well, at least there were more bees to get them through until I could find another queen. This year is getting expensive and no further along. After another couple of weeks I find a guy that was local that was supposedly raising queens but he didn't call me back.  Then I found out that my old mentor had some nucs for sale so I got a couple of them.  One I installed into the hive at the mountain.  That install seemed to go ok and just checking them recently they seem to be doing ok now.  When I looked in the  in-law's hive before installing the nuc I found the queen had actually come back to the hive and was laying.  Who would have thought?  So that nuc ended up in my back yard.  It is still in 5 frame equipment and will probably stay that way all summer.  With a little luck things are now on track.  I don't know that I will get any honey this year but at least if things go well from there out I should be in ok shape going into the winter.