Long Live the Queen!

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Back when we released the queen I thought I lost one.  I thought she got on my glove and I flung her into the grass behind the hive.  She is it.  If she doesn’t lay her eggs and get to it…the whole hive will collapse very shortly.  She is the only one who can lay eggs… so without her…they all will die off.  So needless to say I was a bit frantic.  Think the scene from “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” when the dad (Rick Moranis) realizes the kids are in the grass and he is afraid to move..but he must look through the yard to find them.  That was me…only pregnant immensely pregnant and without a cool hovering harness made from a drying rack like the movie.  I went back out to the bee yard three or four more times the rest of the night looking for her.  I was that certain she was what I had flung off my glove.

So when we went out 2 weeks later to cut off some miss built comb and add the queen excluders (those stop the queen from climbing higher and laying babies in your honey) I was worried we would find an already weak hive in near collapse.  I never saw the queen… but I did find signs she was alive and very well.  There was plenty of brood (baby bees). You can’t have babies without a queen, this I know!   I would say there is more obvious brood in that little hive then in the robust thriving ones next to it!

See the little “C” shaped babies all curled up in each comb? The higher up you look the chubbier (older ) the babies are…and as you look down the frame you can see teeny tiny ones. You can even see some have 2 in each spot… I don’t know what happens in those situations. Either way the nursery is full!  Do you see them?

To celebrate we were rewarded with that miss built comb! It didn’t last long.