Off with her head!
The experience of taking classes for beekeeping this summer has been invaluable. My student hive lost the original queen and has not managed to regain a new healthy one again this summer.
At first, I was super sad that my hive suffered this loss. It made me feel like a mama bee failure. But I quickly learned that its the name of the game with bee keeping and any anything goes. It's mother nature doing her thing. In fact, it taught me that there is so much to learn about beekeeping its nuts.
My queen wasn’t working fast enough, so the bee’s killed her and made a new queen. That queen went out to mate and never returned. The workers drew up another queen cell and another emerged, she was the world's tiniest queen, she laid one egg! She quickly disappeared, and another queen appeared! The jury is still out on her, and I’m still waiting……..
It propelled me into learning more advanced techniques. If I didn’t have that experience, I don’t think I would be prepared to answer all of the questions and meet the challenges that presented throughout the season. I made new friends this summer and Tim, one of our instructors has been critical in handing down his experience and expertise.
Besides our student hives, Sandhya and I started another nuc (short for nucleus) we purchased from an Amish couple at Turtlebee Farms. You truly have to hedge your bets and not place all your bee’s in one basket so to speak, because you never know how productive a hive will be. I need to ensure I have at least one strong colony going into winter for therapy, so diversity is the key!
We drove out on a lovely summer twilight to the country and picked up the kit. Tim and Kathie are very cool people living a quiet and simplified life. It was a fun experience. Tim was calm with the bees, handled the frames without gloves and without a suit. His hands and hive tools were worn and made for lovely photographs. Sandhya and I took the nuc back to her house and set it up in her garden.
I also purchased two additional nuc's from Tim our instructor. Our family is growing into a million tiny workers.
