Queenless, no Bohemian Rapsody here

First inspection for three weeks due to low temperatures today. Good and no so good outcomes. Firstly I wore my green gardening gloves for the inspection. It did come to me later that the bees find these sticky and once on them cannot get off. This would account for the punchy sting I got a few moments after the hive was open. Cannot say I wasn’t disappointed at this as its a bit like having a row with your best mate during the first ten minutes of a night out. Things were frosty between me and the bees for while after this and I didn’t really feel like making small talk about the weather or pollen supplies over the fields.

I tried to move on from it, slightly grumpy and feeling the adrenalin caused by the sting coursing through my veins and carried on looking through the hive with Hubby. First hive was ok, bees were very plentiful, but struggled to see eggs. We concluded they were some but not masses. Things were ok, not great but ok.

The second hive, I was standing further back now, was a different story. Less bees, no eggs, no queen. This is not great news. Hives with no queens can die. There was also more honey than brood in the brood box. There were also 4 queen cells. So, I have been researching what this means as although we have dealt with this before I need an emergency reminder as getting this wrong could be the end of hive 2 as we imaginatively call this hive.

I am still figuring this out tonight, but I think we have supersedure cells. These are produced when the old queen is too old or stops working hard enough (let that be a warning) and is replaced. The bees create new queen cells and the first one out destroys the competition. Imagine that being your first job after birth!

We have to decide how to proceed as soon as possible as we might have it all wrong and the bees are actually about to swarm.

If we are certain and think they are supersedure cells we should leave them alone to sort it out.

More news or not soon. did I say there was good and not so good news? I cannot remember the good news, I think maybe it was all not so good. Hurts to type from my swollen hand……..back soon

By the way – if you follow @roaringbees on instagram you can see more pics on what we are up to.

photo credit: ScientificBeekeeping.com