Black Beauty.

Having been out at the bees a couple of days ago and seen that one colony was preparing to swarm, I was out again today to put a stop to that sort of thing. The instructions in all the bee books say, “Start off by finding the queen!” Probably more than half the beekeepers fall at that first hurdle, in fact, until last year, I did too. What changed last year is completely beyond me, I have always known the best strategy for finding the lady, and have habitually followed it. It was never a problem as, over the years, I learnt various work-a-rounds. However, I am not proud of my attempt as a make-up artist with this young lady.
 
You are supposed to mark the queen with a colour corresponding to the year she emerged, white was for 2016, but I know from my records that she emerged on July the first, last year. I see no reason to have all the different colour paints drying out in my tool box so all my queens are white. The purpose behind marking the queen is not so that you know how old she is, or even to make her easier to find, it’s so that you know if she’s been replaced. If you suddenly find an unmarked queen in a hive, then you know that the old one has either met with an accident at the hands of a clumsy beekeeper, that you have lost her with the swarm that she took away with her, or that she was getting old and the colony replaced her.
 
This young lady is big, fat, black and, to my eyes, beautiful. She is everything that a dark native queen honey bee should be – but with  one exception, her progeny have long blond hair sticking out from between the body segments. It’s a disappointment, but not a disaster. She has been removed from the colony, along with a suitable number of worker bees, and is now quite happy heading a small colony in the back garden until she has built up a strong enough population to return to the apiary without the risk of being victimised by the stronger hives. She now thinks she has swarmed and shouldn’t attempt to do so again – provided that she’s read the same books that I have. The colony she has left will replace her and, in about four weeks they will have a freshly mated young queen who will also not have any desire to swarm – with the standard proviso. I just need the same thing to happen to the other two colonies, preferably conveniently timed to fit in with our holidays.