Observation Hive Queen Drama.

Introduction

Heavy rain at last and the wildfires that raged on Dava moor, Moray and Speyside have gone out. Above ground that is, but they can smoulder away for longer underground in peatlands. This is an ecological disaster for the area and reflects climate change in Scotland where we have had the hottest driest June for a very long time. Plants are flowering almost a month earlier in the case of bramble, rosebay willowherb and lime. A friend saw ling heather in bloom end of June and is comes out traditionally in early August. Goldenrod in my garden is about to flower and it will not surprise me if I see Himalayan balsam pollen coming in soon.

Bottom-Up Beekeeping

My signed copy of Bottom-Up Beekeeping arrived this week which was a thrill to see, especially having supported Ray from the start of his writing journey. It is quite remarkable that Ray achieved all this in just over a year. Well done, Ray, and thank you for the copy. I’ve been sitting in my garden rocker reading with a café latte at my side. I was initially surprised to see tiny tooth marks on a couple of pages—nothing to do with the author I hasten to add. I realised that the book must have been left within reach of a teething toddler I know. While I hope that the young bee apprentice Leo grows up devouring books, I only mean this figuratively.

Welcome

Welcome to everyone who joined the blog readership recently, and thank you to those of you who generously donated to the blog upkeep and security.

Alan Baxter

Alan Baxter joined the Beelistener Facebook page this week and shared his strategy for dealing with defensive colonies. You will also find it on his rather nice blog here www.alanbaxtersblogs.co.uk.

Observation Hive High Jinks

Great excitement in the observation hive this week, and not just for young Leo (18 months) who likes to visit the bees there at least four times a day during the three days a week that he is in my care. Luckily I am patient for it is quite a palaver keeping him safe on the path to the shed and he is heavy to carry now. With rapid progress in language skills over a few weeks, Leo now says ‘zz zz’ rather than ‘sh sh’ when he clutches my hand and leads me off on another adventure to the bees. I rather suspect that one of the main attractions is switching the shed light on and off for Granny. However, on request, we always stop while he watches with fascination how the nearly-pure Amm bees come and go at the entrance of their hive beside the path to the shed.

Piping

Thanks to Leo’s frequent visits to the glass hive, I hear a queen piping ten days after the primary swarm left. What’s more I was able to spot her and watch while she pressed her thorax against a piece of empty comb to vibrate her wing muscles and create the high- pitched sound we call piping. Scout worker bees pipe too—and they do this when a bivouacked swarm had decided where the new home will be and the bees must warm their flight muscles for departure. Piping scouts are passing on the message to their sisters that it is time to leave and they must warm up their wing muscles to 35°C for take-off.

But in this case the new queen was trying to find her rival queens and kill them in their cells. I could hear her pipe faintly through the glass and it wasn’t long before I spotted her scurrying up the frame with two workers in hot pursuit. It was as if they were keeping her away from the other four queen cells in the hive. I didn’t hear any of the lower pitched ‘quacking’ sounds that the queens inside their cells make in response to the piping. I saw the virgin queen lower her abdomen into an empty cell, but in no time her pursuers had her out of there and on the move again. At one point she was still for a few seconds and had a following of bees antennating her and paying attention. It was fleeting and she was off again rushing around the frames.

At 6:30 am the next day, after heavy overnight rain, there was condensation on the glass tunnel and a large slug having a sleepover was blocking one side the exit. I wondered how that would pan out if the bees decided to swarm that day. However, by noon the slug had removed itself and I put copper tubing up against the shed in an attempt to deter any further uninvited incursions.

Two days later the virgin was still piping and moving over the comb but less frantically. There was a dead queen on the floor and two queen cells had been torn down. Well, there was a huge whole at one side of the cell but I didn’t see who killed the occupants; probably the virgin queen since that it what usually happens.

Three days later, and 13 since the primary swarm left, there are two visible queen cells left out of five. One is at the back of the lower frame and other on the front. The front one looks the better one because it is larger and better sculpted in the peanut-like indentations. The bees are keeping this queen prisoner till they send out a cast swarm. She is ready to emerge but cannot because the workers keep plastering on more wax to keep her in. I see bees carrying fallen wax from the floor up to recycle. I know that she wants to emerge because one side of the cell is attached the glass and the queen has made a round hole. I can see her moving in the cell and it is like looking in through the port hole of a ship though visibility is poorer and I can only see movement inside. I tried to take pictures but they are not very clear.

Today was cool and showery and tomorrow is to be very windy so it will be interesting to find out how long this drama will go on for. I hope they use my skep bivouac lure this time since I have moved its position to the tree where the primary swarm went to. I shall keep you posted.