WHERE'S THE BLOODY QUEEN?

.. And do we have a Plan Bee?

FOR THE past couple of weeks hubby and I have been in and out of our beehive since collecting a swarm  from Ayr earlier this month. This wasn't how we planned things as in the apiary world less is usually more and once we'd settled the bees in their National hive we hadn't planned to disturb them for a while.

DOUBLE BEE CUP: Busy bees kept on building 

after running out of the wax foundation on the 

short frame

 However we're heading towards the end of June now and we've not seen the Queen Bee or evidence of her existence. And as even the most novice beekeeper knows, a hive can not operate without her and the colony is doomed to fail unless a remedy is found. So my mentor who lives near Edinburgh kept telling me to go back into the hive and find the Queen. Now despite our Laurel and Hardy antics - we even forgot the smoker to pacify the hive occupants on one occasion - hubby and I have not been stung once because those bees seem to have an unbelievably nice nature and are extremely tolerant of our fumblings in their abode. In the end we took some photographs to try and find clues of a queen's existence - eggs or larva would do it. I sent this picture on the right to my mentor who must have laughed off his socks - I'd made a basic schoolboy howler by inserting a shallow 'super' frame into the much deeper brood box. As you can see the bees have been so busy they carried on making honeycomb despite running out of the foundation material. Now apart from giving everyone a good belly laugh at my expense - and no doubt some weird ideas to the S&M world of fashion - this picture does reveal my bees are conducting themselves in a normal manner despite the best efforts of their abnormal keepers!

FRAMED: But can you spot the queen?

 However my mentor urged me to make preparations for a new queen just in case the old one had been squashed by us or had been left behind when the swarm was collected. Believe it or not there's a whole industry supporting beekeepers and there are people who breed Queen Bees. So I contacted a woman in Inverness who sells queens and I told her my problem. She could've just sold me one straight away - you can pay anything from £25-£50 for a queen bee - and let me muddle on in my haphazard manner but she realised how green I was and asked a few more questions about the condition of the bees, the comb and the hive. Her company Highland Bee Supplies is worth a plug because she was so helpful, so here it is: http://highlandbeesupplies.com/

 Anyway, she reckons cos my bees are so placid, content and busy there must be a queen in the hive. "You've probably got a virgin queen, one that hasn't yet mated. Give it another week and if there's no sign of egg laying activity call me back."

 In the meantime I receive a new colony of english bees tomorrow from Shropshire and someone has also suggested I nick one of the brood frames from that colony and stick it in my first hive. The reason being is that if the Virgin Queen is inside and hasn't yet mated this will encourage the worker bees to produce some queen cells just in case and if there isn't a queen then the workers will turn some of the eggs into queen cells anyway and create a ruler for their hive.

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Apparently a colony without a queen can go psycho and aggressive. Mercifully my Ayrshire colony is still in party mode so let's hope their good nature continues. In the meantime there's a mini video shot from the apiary and you can judge for yourself the temperament of my honeybees.