New Queen (take 3)

After a glitch last week that prevented us from completing an inspection, Steve and I visited this morning to find our new queen has mated successfully and is now laying over 3 frames in the observation hive.

If you look carefully at the photos you should be able to see some eggs, some larvae and some cells that have been sealed over to allow larvae to develop into new young bees.

Steve caught the queen and marked her with a spot of green (this year’s colour in the International Colour Code cycle). We put the frames containing brood on the outside edges of the hive. If you are lucky, you may catch sight of the new, green, queen visiting these combs to lay more eggs.

Don’t forget, each Tuesday afternoon, during the school summer holidays, there will be a Beekeeper by the Hive, available to answer your questions and point out anything of interest going on. Our competition to name the new queen is still open, so be sure to tell museum staff downstairs the name you think would best suit her and leave your own name and age, to go into a future Bee Blog if your name is chosen.