03/24/2024
After we squished the queens from some of the hive boxes last week, they knew they did not have a queen so the ladies sat in making queen cups and cells to replace the missing queen. This is what they do in the wild to make a new queen when something happens to the old one. The problem with this is, it keeps the same genetics that are currently in the hive. Since these hives were "hot" we wanted new genetics, hence the new, bought queens we introduced. But before we could put the new queens into the hives, we had to go in and squish all of these queen cups and cells. The white gooey stuff is royal jelly and a single larva. If we had left those, one would have eventually hatched and then would have killed the new queen we put into the hive, that is if the workers hadn't already killed her, while loyally waiting for their new queen, still in the cell to hatch. These are truly amazing creatures and are awesome to watch and work with. Oh, and if you are wondering about the "Oh" and "Sorry"... I dropped my end of the frame and it hit down on the other frames, which makes the bees not happy at all!! Whoops!! So, Until the next time, see you all in the bee yard!!