The Queen is everywhere. On a boat in the rain; standing beside a hula-hooping Grace Jones; her face is even on Tesco’s cupcakes. But while there’s no escaping our long standing monarch, my Queen is nowhere to be seen.
It’s been one month since my hive swarmed and two weeks since the last inspection. Some expert advice might be needed so I pick up my beekeeping friend, Darren, to provide an extra pair of eyes.
He’s the Harry to my William. While I’m more cautious, he’s all gung ho, a bit of a rogue and likely to dress-up inappropriately at a fancy dress party. He’s a manly beekeeper and someone I need to learn from.
The good news: We cannot see any varroa and there is plenty of capped honey in the super, see photo, makes my mouth water.
The bad news: We cannot see any brood, eggs or Queen. And if the Diamond Jubilee has taught us anything – it’s that we need a Queen (if only to give a disapproving look to Elton John).
All 6 Queen cells had hatched out and it looks like each one had taken a cast (= after swarm) with it. I had hoped the first Queen to hatch out would kill her sisters (after all there’s a bit history of this with those royal folk) but this obviously hadn’t happened and now I only have about 5,000 bees left.
Suddenly I wish Darren wasn’t here to size up my hive. I also wish I had killed the Queen cells as advised and maybe I would have had more of a hive to size up.
Maybe sensing my slight-despair-with-a-hint-of-embarrassment Darren did offer some solace. “Don’t worry mate – the weather’s been pants so maybe the Queen’s just gone out on her mating flight. And worse case you can just buy a new queen for £25”.
When it comes to bees … royalty is cheap!
Then we went to inspect Darren’s hives and I got Hive Envy.
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Unlucky – your queens obviously went off to celebrate the Jubilee in style. Fingers crossed that one stayed behind and is raring to go.
I will be checking on Sunday!
I would love to be beekeeper but I don’t have any knowledge. How should I learn it.