New queen bee in the post!

All very exciting, ordered a new queen bee and she's in the post to me, should arrive at work tomorrow, not sure who is more excited me or my colleagues! Talk of a naming competition on line and a little CityWest Homes t shirt for her!!:-), also been concerns, ranging from have I written a risk assessment to what food  and drink should they get in for her!:-)

Moving house

Ok forgot to mention the other big event coming up, I am moving house, not too far and that is the problem, it's less than three miles, so technically it means that my bees might be visiting the new garden already, but I can't believe that it just seems too far for a bee to fly!


So I need to find somewhere to put the hive for a week or so, that is over three miles from here and over three miles from new house, any volunteers? :-) email me, peter.armfield1@btinternet.com


As to actually moving a full hive, that should be fun in my car, not just once but twice! Really not looking forward to that, but hey ho all part of the fun of keeping bees.

Hope they will like there new home, looking forward to filling the garden with bee friendly plants and perhaps another colony or two!

No Queen again!

Well it seems like there will be no honey this year, this new colony has struggled a bit, and now there is no Queen, can only think she swarmed when I was on holiday, they say beekeepers should never go away in swarming season, but bugger that, I needed some sun :-).
I looked last weekend and there were some empty queen cells which should mean that there would be a new queen, but no sign, was too early for her to start laying eggs, there were also three queen cells unopened. Today all queen cells are open and still no queen, will give it one more week and then I will order a new queen online and get her posted to work. £35, but it's the only way the colony stands an outside chance of surviving.
That should be fun, hope nobody opens my post in error that day!