Just wanted to share. I had several swarm cells in my observation hive. Since I can get really close without bothering them, I can record them. The attached sound file is a virgin queen piping. I had a few of these in there, so they were doing it off and on all day.
There are two recordings from my observation hive. When it comes to virgin queens, they make a couple sounds. This hive had more than one, and so you can here one “quacking” and it’s what it sounds like, a quack type sound over and over. Then, you can hear the piping sound, which has a sound that kind of ramps up, and then repeats. It sounds like a tiny, tiny kazoo trumpet like sound. Supposedly, the queen will quack while still in the cell, and startpiping right before and after she emerges. There are some theories as to why they do this, but I’ll let you look those up. 🙂
~Rob Wokaty
Rockwood Park Backyard Beekeepers 