2026: Cliffe Castle Bee Blog 6

Today, Sunday 10 May, Anthony and I called in at Cliffe Castle to check whether the bees had been busy using some of the eggs that Beedicca left on the combs to raise a replacement queen, now that she is back at our apiary site.

Sure enough, we found a total of 5 queen cells over 3 frames in the hive. We chose the one that was best placed on its frame to survive the journey back to the hive stand, and pushed a drawing pin into the top of the frame, to help remind us where it is. You can see the cell we chose in the picture. All we can do now, is wait and hope that a healthy new queen emerges to replace Beedicca.

Each of the 3 different types of honey bee in a colony (workers, queen and drones) takes a different amount of time to emerge from their birth cell. Workers take 21 days, drones take 24 days and queens take 16 days. When the new queen emerges, her external skeleton needs to

harden during the first 24 hours of her life. For the first 5 to 6 days, her body is adjusting to what will be her role in the colony. Her internal organs are developing and getting ready for the mating flights that will provide her with the means to lay fertilised eggs to produce more

workers to keep the colony alive.

When she is physically ready to make her mating flights, the worker bees in the colony are very keen that she gets on with it. They will sometimes treat her quite roughly, to make sure she leaves the hive in good time to fulfil this important task. She can make a number of flights

over several days.

We will need to be patient, to give the bees the time and space for all of this to happen. We won’t disturb them for the next 3 or 4 weeks (depending on the weather), to allow time for mating flights to take place. If we have some days that are calm and warm in the early afternoon, we can check in 3 weeks to see whether we have a new, mated, queen in the colony, who is laying eggs. If not, we will check the following week for the same signs of success.

Keep your fingers crossed that all goes smoothly and according to plan!

Linda