Queen bee

I don't have much luck with queens, they seem to like going AWOL for no apparent reason, leaving me with a hive infested with drones and bad tempered workers. The last time I ordered a queen bee she ended up swarming and went to live in the neighbour's hive, much to his amusement when he realised he'd caught himself a beautiful new mated Buckfast queen. Note that there was no offer to return her....

This year I must have made yet another rookie mistake in trying to prevent my one hive from swarming in the Spring. I took a queen cell out to make up a nuc, but in the end, neither that cell, nor any subsequent queen cells in the main hive, ended up actually bearing a bee of any shape or form. I've waited for a while before taking the leap and ordering a new queen in case a maiden was out looking for husbands and just hadn't come back yet, but in the end as the drone brood piled up and no worker brood appeared week after week, it was time to step in. 

My Buckfast-cross queen arrived this morning with the rest of the post, her attendants bustling around her, in a small 'lollipop cage' plugged with candy. Never having seen one before I wasn't sure how to put her into the brood box, particularly as we have no brood so putting her amongst closed brood in order to make sure newly hatched bees adopt her instantly was not an option. After reading the online instructions over and over, it was clear that I was massively overthinking the entire operation. She just needed to be placed - as is - in the brood chamber in between two frames of bees. 

I have erred on the side of caution given the grumpiness of the hive currently and taped over the candy plugging the lollipop cage. This is to give the bees a chance to get used to the new queen and not sting her to death. In two days time on Saturday morning I'll go back, remove the tape and then when either side has eaten through the candy she'll be free to enter the main chamber and start laying. 

The only slight concern remaining is that, when I tried to place the cage between the frames, it dropped down slightly so the candy plug is facing down and the cage is attached by a corner on the diagonal. I was worried it was going to drop onto the floor of the box, so very relieved that didn't happen. However trying to nudge it back out again to take the tape off without dropping her is going to be really difficult. I'll have to get Eddie to give me a hand with it so that we try and hold on to an end each and lift her out gently that way. 

For now though, it was very gratifying to see the bees make a bee-line - literally! - for their new queen. Even after just a few minutes of having put her into the hive, I'm sure they'd calmed down, as if they knew that suddenly what they'd been missing had been replaced. Fingers crossed they give her a friendly welcome and she lives a long and happy life with her new family. 

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