New Blue Queen

2025 Cliffe Castle Bee Blog # 7

Anthony and I checked the bees this morning (11 August) and I marked her blue (rather heavy handed – she looks like an accident in a paint factory!). She’s a rather lovely dark queen and now laying on two of the inner frames in the observation hive. We saw eggs, larvae and sealed brood today.

Although it looks as though there are hardly any bees in the hive now, when we put the frames into a regular brood box, during the inspection, there were six seams of bees. A “seam” is the space between the wooden frames, so there are many more than it seems.

With a new queen in residence and laying, a number of bees will be looking after the eggs, larvae and brood on the inside frames, as well as feeding and cleaning the queen, who is also in that area. You may still get a chance to see her. Just look for a large, blue, splot!

Don’t forget to have a go in our Name the Queen 2025 competition. Just tell museum staff downstairs the name you want to suggest and let them have your name and age. I will post a blog with the name we choose toward the end of the holidays. Good luck!

Linda