Sometimes it is only the fighters who make it through – perhaps that is why Hive 2 at Bertie’s Cottage seems in such fine fettle. The queen’s character and health dictates the temper of her colony, and as the season progressed, Queen 2 was obviously well out of sorts, since her workers resented gardeners on the veg terraces below. Normally this isn’t the case, and, unless the weather is stormy or you are wearing a perfume they dislike, bees will happily work alongside people.
I know they must feel demoralised by a second lousy summer, but this year stroppy bees have been a regular pain. I kept humming and haaing about killing Queen 2 and giving the sisters a new matriarch, but at such a critical time for the species, I couldn’t help projecting into the future, imagining honey bees all dead, and the guilt I would feel at having wilfully annihilated a hardy strain.
However, last week, as I peaceably hoed around the brassicas, a fifth ambassador in a row from that hive shot into view like a miniature missile, emitting the unmistakable high-pitched shriek of kamikaze. Within seconds she netted herself into my hair so, since Jim was away, I fled to my lovely beekeeping neighbours, hoping they’d squash her before I was stung. They parted my hair, just as I felt the poison hit. It was one assault too many – either I’d give the whole colony away with their harridan ruler, or I would kill her and unite my two hives under the other sweeter-tempered queen.
Adam, the local bee inspector is invaluable. He came over, we opened Hive 2, and as I smoked the tops of the frames to subdue the inmates, he chiselled out the frames to look for the queen and check the brood and the larder. Through his veil, his face lit up. He rhapsodised at the fecundity of the laying pattern in the brood chamber – uniform swathes of hexagonal cells, with no ‘pepperpot’ appearance (where uncapped cells amongst sealed brood reveal a dip in fertility or the presence of disease).
He then discovered a vacated queen cell (resembling an overlong acorn, with a hammered pattern as if it were metal). It appears that the old queen has been superseded by young, vigorous successor, carrying a new set of paternal genes. In honeybees, the drone’s character regulates the offspring’s temper. With luck my new queen’s father came from our neighbour David’s hive, another ‘black’, local strain, but more friendly.
We won’t find out what she is like till next spring. The bees, within combs stuffed with ivy honey and sugar syrup, are clustered together, vibrating quietly to ward off the chill. Last job of the year, I must nail up a mouse guard of perforated zinc to ensure the hives are not invaded whilst the bees are inactive.
I know they must feel demoralised by a second lousy summer, but this year stroppy bees have been a regular pain. I kept humming and haaing about killing Queen 2 and giving the sisters a new matriarch, but at such a critical time for the species, I couldn’t help projecting into the future, imagining honey bees all dead, and the guilt I would feel at having wilfully annihilated a hardy strain.
However, last week, as I peaceably hoed around the brassicas, a fifth ambassador in a row from that hive shot into view like a miniature missile, emitting the unmistakable high-pitched shriek of kamikaze. Within seconds she netted herself into my hair so, since Jim was away, I fled to my lovely beekeeping neighbours, hoping they’d squash her before I was stung. They parted my hair, just as I felt the poison hit. It was one assault too many – either I’d give the whole colony away with their harridan ruler, or I would kill her and unite my two hives under the other sweeter-tempered queen.
Adam, the local bee inspector is invaluable. He came over, we opened Hive 2, and as I smoked the tops of the frames to subdue the inmates, he chiselled out the frames to look for the queen and check the brood and the larder. Through his veil, his face lit up. He rhapsodised at the fecundity of the laying pattern in the brood chamber – uniform swathes of hexagonal cells, with no ‘pepperpot’ appearance (where uncapped cells amongst sealed brood reveal a dip in fertility or the presence of disease).
He then discovered a vacated queen cell (resembling an overlong acorn, with a hammered pattern as if it were metal). It appears that the old queen has been superseded by young, vigorous successor, carrying a new set of paternal genes. In honeybees, the drone’s character regulates the offspring’s temper. With luck my new queen’s father came from our neighbour David’s hive, another ‘black’, local strain, but more friendly.
We won’t find out what she is like till next spring. The bees, within combs stuffed with ivy honey and sugar syrup, are clustered together, vibrating quietly to ward off the chill. Last job of the year, I must nail up a mouse guard of perforated zinc to ensure the hives are not invaded whilst the bees are inactive.
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