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02/24/2006 Archived Entry: "Valentines Day and the heartbreak that comes with it."

Nothing like some superficial drama to make the day complete.
On Valentines day I had taken some time after work to just sit and watch the hive. One of the things you notice is bees near the end of their life drop onto the ground around the hive. Without enough energy to fly into the hive and a lack of suport from the hive their hours are numbered. Bees that are also defective or crippled in some way also end up here.

When I had done the merger of my feral queenless colony to the nuc with with the active queen. I knew any non mated queens would end up getting kicked out of the hive. Savagely kicked out. Queens even unmated are very distinct in their apperance, they have longer bodies.

On the ground with a couple of broken legs was an unmated queen. The bee wasn't going to last much longer. I moved it over to a nice area and let it alone. There wasn't anything I could do about it. It would be nice if that was enough.

I know I am not a real experienced beekeeper and my ablity to recognize eggs freshly laid in the cells. I did a what I thought was a nice inspection on Saturday on the new hive I bought from Leonard. But I didn't see the queen. I didn't think much of it. You don't always see the queen. Well Sunday something wierd happened. One of two things happened I can't be sure which. Either the hive was attacked (my choice) or the queen was superceded. I came out at about 3pm to a massive black cloud of bees around my new hive. Bees everywhere. Well I figured there was either an attack of something wierd happened. Now I decided not to stick around because angry bees don't like anybody even me. On Wenesday I went into the hive. The numbers were much lower. I went through each frame. There was no capped brood. And then on the middle frame near the top right corner was a queen cell formed. That means I have no queen until she hatches and mates, this could take just about a month. So basically when it comes to queen bees my track record sucks. I never got the one from the feral colony I removed from the boat. I have lost the queen to my second hive or one reason or another.

It just seems like the women in my life keep dying and I have to bury the bodies in the yard.

If this hive gets to weak I will have to do something, because the hive beetles will decimate the hive.

I think I am going to switch to permacomb frames.