I try to watch orientation each day that I am home. This was always a great thrill for me…but they’ve swarmed twice now and I get nervous that this will be the third time. They probably wouldn’t recover from another.
Today I noticed an unusually large number of Drones. I have learned from other beekeepers that Drones can go from hive to hive….I wonder if they are waiting for a Virgin Queen to take one of her mating flights.
All the big bees with the dark heads (eyes I think) are the Drones. Their heads appear round while the worker bees heads look like a triangle. There are a few in this photo but most are Drones.
Maybe a “beek” with lots of knowledge could pick out a Virgin Queen…but not me.
A few hours later everything had settled down…I sure hope this is a good sign that a Virgin Queen is in the hive and just needs to make her mating flights. Without a laying Queen fairly soon….the hive will die out….unless I purchase another.
Sam Comfort…the beekeeper I bought these from told me to check the hive again on Thursday ….if I see no sign of a laying Queen he could send me one. I’ll forward a link to the blog to him and see what he thinks this could mean.
Here’s a video of the action at the front of the hive.
Oh….remember those little Monarch caterpillars I posted about a few days ago? Here are some of them today. They are little eating machines….most of these should go to the top and pupate shortly…..at least I hope they do….I’m running out of plants.
Wow, that seems like a very high proportion of drones. I've never seen so many. I'm anxious to learn what Sam tells you. My fingers are crossed for you. - HB
ReplyDeleteAs always, I'm fascinated with your nature adventures. I just found a live cam of a honey bee hive in Germany by explore.org and thought of you. "After a dramatic honeycomb cave in, the colony is again thriving as thousands of bees contribute to the organic growth of this hive in Bavaria Germany." http://explore.org/#!/live-cams/player/honey-bee-hive-cam
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