The Queen

It is with great sadness this Diamond Jubilee weekend that we announce the death of our beautiful young Queen Bee, Cleo.  This picture shows her arriving at Valley Garden Paradise on the 18th June 2011 with the Master bee keeper who bred her in his apiary.  As promised she proved to have a lovely disposition and, to our delight, quickly set to work increasing her colony.  She was a soft tobacco colour with a distinctive rounded abdomen and an inquisitive, industrious nature.  Within weeks her bees were filling the frames with pollen and nectar as well as producing delicious honey; enough to share some with us as well as providing 40lb to feed her colony throughout the winter.

The warm spell in March encouraged Cleo to start laying brood earlier than usual, very quickly the hive was numbering in excess of seventy thousand honey bees.  Inevitably, space started to run short and a couple of weeks ago the colony decided to swarm and relocate.  In terms of nature it is a good sign that Cleo was productive enough to start a second colony, however, being a clipped queen this was never going to be an option for her.  Two weeks ago we spotted the swarm and were able to help her back into her hive post swarm. We know that she continued laying for at least a week as there was fresh brood in the frames at our last hive check. However, we are not sure whether or not the colony attempted to swarm again in the high temperatures of last weekend, this may well be the case, but sadly this time we did not see it happen.  We can see that the colony is not Queen-right and very probably Queen-less.  There is no new brood and the bees seem at a loss; desperately trying to transform existing larvae into a potential Queen cells in a last-ditch attempt to save the hive from extinction... they are like a ship without a rudder!

  As soon as the Jubilee holiday is over we will try to re-Queen.  The lifespan of a honey bee is six weeks, so inevitably there will be a decline in the colony in five weeks time. Hopefully, our new queen will settle in and the colony will accept her leadership. Whatever happens it is going to be a tense few weeks for us all.