Queen Bee Death Match!

So, tomorrow is the day, day 9. The day that we will be cracking the hive open and taking a look to see how they are fairing. I admit, I have had a bit of anxiety about the queen leaving, which of course I know to be irrational, but this was quite an investment in time and in money and if the queen left, we would be screwed, and I would cry. I want this to succeed so much! We went to the Bee Shop in Sellwood and I got a second opinion that all should be well since the bees are still there en-masse and have been eating and coming and going. I also picked up a bee brush while we were there. You should check them out, their blog is really informative and they are local to me, literally blocks from my house. The only real difference between them and Ruhl Bees is that they don't sell packages as they prefer to deal in swarms and they prefer to offer top bar hives. They also do not sell foundation. They are very much against foundation. Who knew? Really solid people though. Which leads me to todays question, what is a swarm? A Swarm is the natural way that beehives reproduce and spread in an area. This may or may not be the way you want to make your hives multiple. What happens is that the old queen stops laying due to a swarming urge or that the hive is too crowded so she needs to start a new colony. There are several ways to stop this, but that is a post for another time. She stops laying and stops eating so that she can be light enough to fly. Than she takes about 60% of the hive with her and flies out of the hive. Queens rarely ever fly, in fact, if you keep them from swarming, she never will in her life, but during a swarm she flies to a spot a few yards from the old home. At this point, without a colony to defend, the bee's can be pretty docile. The still will sting if you are messing with them and they feel threatened, but wouldn't you? At this point, the swarm will stay at that first landing point anywhere from an hour to three days. The most experienced forager bee's will become scouts and go looking for a suitable place for them to settle in. They all come back and present their findings to the colony and promote the places they think are best. This includes getting the other scout bees to agree with them. It is very democratic actually. Once a spot has been decided on, they fly there and start all over again. Meanwhile, the parent hive will groom queen cells that had been drawn on the bottom of the comb and the first queen out will sting all the others to death in their cells. If multiple queens emerge at the same time, then a Queen Bee Death Match will happen and the strongest quickest Queen will triumph and go on to be mated and begin her life as supreme lady of the hive. Queens are fed exclusively on Royal Jelly. This transforms a regular worker into a reproducing queen. Here is a queen bee. The REALLY dark spot on top and being bigger than the others gives it away.

They sometimes come with a spot on them. I haven't seen ours yet, but perhaps we will get lucky and see her tomorrow. Hopefully, photos to follow. adieu