Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Long live the queen!

Yay! Packages of another sort arrived.


The girls are here!


Hubby wanted to make sure that I shared the experience so I did install three of the packages. Unfortunately, I had another event scheduled in the afternoon and had to leave but grandson David took over and installed two packages by himself as well.


We will check this weekend and make sure that the queens survived. One took off flying as Bob was releasing her but we are hoping she returned to her attendants. It is fascinating to watch the workers care for and feed the queen right through screen covering the queen cage before she is released in the hive. I think it is so interesting that she knows just what to do to take over the leadership of the hive. She was bred apart from the others and is another type of bee. The packages are Italian bees but soon all of the hives will be Carniolans because all of our queens are California Carniolans and will lay Carniolan eggs.


The queen cage was introduced to the other bees four days earlier so the other bees have had an opportunity to get used to and accept her. Each queen has a unique smell and once she is recognized and accepted the other bees are all willing to give their lives to save her.

If our queens do well, the hives will do well.

It is kind of like . . . if mama's happy, everybody's happy.

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

Fascinating information! I see that Lynn and Donna now have bees!

Wanda..... said...

I've never seen so many bees, Brenda!
Your honey production must be thriving!