I have a Queen!

Status of my left hive continued . . .

On Wednesday, my bee friend Sarah and I went into my left hive to see if we could determine if the bees were acting aggressively towards the new queen in her cage, and to look for any evidence of a natural queen from the queen cells made by the bees.

Although it seemed there were plenty of bees around the queen cage, they didn't seem to be angry in any way. So, we set that upper brood chamber aside and went to the lower one where I thought a new natural queen would be laying (if she existed) since the upper chamber is being largely used to store honey.

I went directly into the center three frames (where most of the "action" in the hive takes place first) and on the back of the third frame Sarah saw THE EGGS. Evidence of a new natural laying queen! How exciting. Even though I have been sad about the swarm, it made me overjoyed to learn that a queen had been birthed in the hive, survived her mating flight, returned to the hive and started to lay eggs. Wow. (My other bee friend Diane was happy to have my other now homeless queen for one of her hives.)

Once your hive swarms, any hopes of a honey harvest are dashed. Now, the goal is making sure they reproduce and strengthen enough to make it through the winter. Stay tuned . . .