After a week of rain and cooler weather the bees have started to go mad with the arrival of warmer weather and they are filling the supers well!
We have been busy splitting our stronger colonies to increase our numbers of production colonies. We have had our early Queens order arrive today and the postman had a shock when the parcel was buzzing!! He said it was the first time he had ever delivered a buzzing parcel and he was quite concerned about how securely enclosed the contents inside were!
Our Queens have travelled in a package from a specialised Scottish breeder and have an established breeding line. We buy direct from the breeder so that our Queens have minimal travelling time between colonies.
When a Queen arrives it has a few attendant bees with her. The job of the attendant bees is to care for, feed and clean the Queen to ensure that she is ready for work when she arrives in her new colony.
A Queen is the only bee in the hive which can lay fertilised eggs. She lives for up to 5 years but as she gets older her egg laying production begins to decline. The Queen looks different from the other bees as she is larger and has a longer pointy bum!
The Queen can be marked with a coloured dot so that her age is known. The colour of the dot corresponds to the year she was hatched. The image shows a Queen marked with a red dot. The smaller bees are worker or female bees and the 'fatter' looking bees are the drone or male bees. This picture shows the Queens pointy bum and long body well compared the other bees within the colony.
Apart from the preparation for the arrival of our Spring Queens, this week we have been busy jarring honey and preparing orders for our stockists and online customers. We have also been at Whitchurch Farmers Market today meeting returning and new customers.
Next Saturday Wendy can be found at the Made In Shropshire Artisan market in the Square in Shrewsbury along with lots of other makers and producers from the glorious county of Shropshire. Here's the link to the Made in Shropshire Artisan Market so that you can have a peak at the delights that will be in the Square in Shrewsbury next Saturday (14th May 2022) https://www.madeinshropshire.org/
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