God Save the Queen

Around 11 o'clock, the phone rang. It was Sue at UPS. "Your bee is here!" On Tuesday I had decided to try re-queening one of the stronger hives that had no brood or queen. Her majesty lifted off Wednesday from just north of Sacramento to make the day journey down here to Carmel. Well, she probably went by truck. But it is 11am, and she is here. So I finished my tea and jumped in the car and rushed down to pick her up.

There she was waiting on a "special counter" at UPS. I peered into one of the air holes and could see a tiny wooden queen cage glued firmly in the center of the box. I would wait until I got back to the farm to open it. But I did have to run an errand over at Pebble. So with Queenie at my side, we drove together over the hill listening (softly) to the Rolling Stones. Mission accomplished, we drove together back to the farm.

Upon returning, I broke out my gear. Yesterday I received some extra internal feeders. Part of the plan was to move feeding inside the hive to discourage robbers. Alas, the new feeders didn't come with floats (a wooden device that keeps bees from losing their footing and drowning in the syrup. Finding an old piece of 2x4, I fired up the saw and made a 1/2 dozen floats. Everything now ready, I donned the bee suit, walked down to the hive site, and lit up the smoker.

I was told that hives that have been without a queen for an extended period can have a rough adjustment to the new queen (once free, I guess re-subjugation is a difficult pill to swallow). Success can be increased by placing a frame or two of brood from one hive into another. So I opened up the hive next door, and found a nice frame with some brood and tried coaxing the bees off of the frame. This turned out to be quite entertaining. The bees were having a great time running from one side of the frame to the other. I would puff them with a little smoke, or softly brush them, and they would all run to the other side of the frame out of sight. After spending some time chasing them around, I became more aggressive with the bee brush, which agitated them some (they hate the "brush" and I generally try to avoid using it, but today I had business to do). A bunch of bees then decided to warn others about the brutish hand that was disturbing them. They all crawled onto the hand, turned their tails high into the air, and started fanning (this is their way of communicating that my hand was up to no good). I watched in amazement for some time. All of the bees fanning in synchronization in the same direction was quite a sight. Their movement actually vibrated my hand continuously, kind of like holding a cell phone in vibrate mode. Only with no pause. Some sensation I must say to actually feel the power of so many small creatures acting in unison. Quite remarkable.

In the photo above, you can see the honey comb this stronger hive had been building out. Beautiful and golden. When things are right, they are right.

Then I opened up the queenless neighbor. The hive still had plenty of bees. So my first task was to go frame by frame to make sure that a queen wasn't hiding in there somewhere. I'm not always quick to spot her, so this takes some time. Once the last frame was removed and no queen was found, I reassembled the hive and opened up her Royal Highness' cardboard coach.

Inside was the wooden cage. And in the wood cage was an energetic queen, moving quickly around with a few attendants who made the journey with her. You can see her on the top of the cage, standing upside down. She has been marked with a big red crimson dot on her thorax.

Each queen has her own scent. This scent drives bee-haviour. If I were to drop Her Majesty into the writhing hive, the other bees would not recognize her perfume. Unlike humans, who would simply shun the offending wearer, the bees would take the matter much more seriously... and kill her. Notice to the right of the cage, the space is filled with a white substance. This is a candy plug. It will take the attendants on the inside, and the workers on the outside a few days to eat their way out of a hole on the right of the cage. Just enough time for the new hive to become familiar with her scent, and come to adore her.

I sandwiched the cage, face down into some wax at the top of the middle frames. Then I installed the new internal feeders and filled them with sugar syrup and closed everything up. Now I wait. On Sunday or Monday I will return to ensure she has safely been able to escape from her sweet prison. God save the queen.