Our new queen is marked so she is easy to find.

Eggs and Larvae Hallelujah!  This is Déjà vu.  Didn’t I write this just a few weeks ago?  Our latest new queen has now integrated into the hive successfully and has started laying eggs.  What a relief.  Our bee population is greatly reduced from missing a laying queen twice this year.

Bees in the summer only live about 35 days.  In a healthy hive, there is an active queen who is laying eggs every day.  Every day in the hive there are eggs turning into larvae, larvae turning into pupa, bees emerging from the pupa and bees dying because their time is up.  If you don’t have a laying queen, this cycle is interrupted and you have bees dying due to their time being up, but no new bees emerging to take their place and the hive population starts to decline.

Our new queen at the top just left of middle.

This hive is now complete with its new queen.  She is at work laying eggs and there are also some larvae in the hive.  The hive population will now start to rebuild again.

We have started feeding the hive as bee food sources are scarce and the theory of beekeeping is that you feed the hive at this time so that the bees can rebuild their honey stores before winter sets in.  This is to replace the honey that the beekeeper has just harvested.  It is doubtful that this hive will be able to replace the honey in their hive to sufficient amounts to hold them over for winter due to their setbacks.

We plan to feed these bees all winter.  This is a resilient hive and we plan to do everything in our power to help them survive.

Best, Sheri