Bee Melodramas

Ah, me. With spring invigorating my bees, I saw that Isolde, the home-grown queen, wasn't such a dud after all. I thought that perhaps I should cancel my order of a replacement queen. But I figured that an extra queen could be handy, especially if I had to make a divide.

At the end of March, I went away for a week (the Chiricahua Mountains blog may or may not be posted when you read this), thinking that all my girls were doing pretty well. Upon my return, however, I found that two had suffered large losses from the mites. In particular, in Boudicca's hive I found virtually no brood - no eggs, no larvae and just a smattering of pupae that looked dead. I couldn't find the queen, either. I was pushed for time, so couldn't stage a queen-hunt. Oh well, there's a new queen coming, I thought.

Then I went back last Wednesday to bring her hive home and prepare it for a new queen. Who do you think I saw but Queen B herself. The hive still looks devastated, but I did see a few larvae that were eggs before - they had been hiding. So her poor performance could have been due to a lack of nurse bees. I combined her with a box of brood and bees from the strong *knock wood* Ekaterina, and hope to find a happier hive soon.

Yesterday the new queen arrived - another Russian-Carniolan. The weather was awful, so Sofia and her ladies-in-waiting stayed in the house overnight. Today was lovely, thank the gods, so I set her up in a hive with more bees and brood from Ekaterina. Cross fingers, toes and eyes.

And then back to Isolde...

I found a bit of wild comb hanging from the lid when I opened it (sorry, no piccie of that). There were eggs, so I thought I'd try a salvage method I had read about. This would be handy if I ever collect a wild hive. Anyway, this hive is booming - brood nest extends through 3 1/2 medium boxes, six frames at its widest. Happy, happy, my spirits were lifting.

Then I got to the bottom box, and took out a frame.

There on the bottom screen was a ball of bees. The big beeks have told kids like me that there is usually a queen in the middle of a ball, being protected by workers if she should find herself out in the wide world. I thought it was rather strange that they were balled up inside the hive, and I wondered if they were attacking an intruder. I eased the ball out and onto another screen and gently nudged bees away. I saw a queenly abdomen. I also saw what looked like bees trying to sting her. Then I saw that she was dead, and they were trying to sting her even deader. A bee coup? WTF???

You'd think her name was Julia Caesar. But just in case the workers were only roughhousing, and she was only pretending to be dead, I left her inside the hive and finished my work. Next week I'll see what I can see - Eggs? An emergency queen cell?

It seems that Sofia came in the nick of time.