Hive Inspection

Once a week I like to do a bed check on my four honey bee hives. Are they queen right? Is she laying well? Do they need more frames? That sort of thing. This morning was my day to inspect. Two hives have queens that overwintered from last year. The other two are nucleus hives (called nucs) that must make their own queens.

In one of the nucs, I found a new queen, born less than a couple of weeks ago. I caged and marked her with this year's official beekeeping colour which is blue. Before I could release her, she ruined the look of her freshly applied makeup when she rubbed her thorax against the marking cage netting, adding a blue smudge to a wing and her abdomen. Anyway, her young majesty is laying well and the hive is well populated and cheerful.

The other nuc hive has not yet produced a queen but are busy grooming queen cells in a donated frame of brood. The bees in that hive are quite docile and seem to be optimistic that their queen rearing enterprise will succeed. Each week I'll add a frame of brood with eggs until I confirm that they are queen right.

Nurse bees fussing over one of their capped queen cells on a donated frame.

The same hive adding royal jelly to another queen cell, not yet capped.

A young queen's mating flight can be problematic. The past several weeks have had many rainy days. Not good since queens mate in mid-air drone congregations. Then there is the gauntlet of birds that would love to nab a flying queen or her entourage. I've spotted an Eastern Kingbird in the yard. They love to snack on honey bees. Are you feeling lucky Princess?

Sorry Carol, but I just had to steal your great idea for a honey gathering box.

The girls (and a couple of flies) love their grape jelly treat.

My yard's Eastern Kingbird watches for insect prey. Please -- not the queen!

Goodbye -- Hello

For the past couple of days I noticed that one of my three honey bee nuc hives was queenless. There was not a trace of eggs or larva to indicate that this new queen had been viable.

This particular queen was an unmarked, slim, black little lady. Even days after being placed in her new permanent wooden hive, she had not been released from her plastic queen cage by the workers that came with her. The sugar plug keeping her in the plastic cage should have been eaten but was still intact! Did they not like her? Was she worried they would kill her? Had she not successfully mated before being caged? When I opened the 'side door' to the cage I expected her to escape and plunge down into the frames. But no-o-o-o! She flew up, up and away. I left the inner cover open for a few minutes to give her a chance to return, then closed up the hive. The next day I checked to see if she had returned. She had, but I saw her fly out again and then come back. Very strange behaviour for a supposedly mated queen. Then, she simply went missing, never to be seen again. No point in putting up her picture on utility poles. Goodbye young lady. I hardly knew you.

So, today I decided to combine the queenless nuc with another queenright one. However, because the bees seemed strangely content in the so-called queenless hive, I had another look through the brood combs. Hello! I saw a big chocolatey-brown queen! The workers seemed devoted to her and were upset when I put the little marking cage over her and marked her thorax with a dot of leaf green non-toxic paint. This new queen must have hatched from a queen cell I saw on a frame some days back. She was bigger than the caged one and a different colour. A real beauty queen!

I'll give her some privacy for at least five days (hard for me to keep my inquisitive little fingers out of the hives) before checking her progress.

These were the queen cages that came with my nucs.

Slurping water from the stone aggregate bird bath.

The fuzzy thorax indicates she is young.

Currently, their favourite forage is my globe thistles.