I just had this feeling.
I've tried to be a beekeeper with an intuitive openness and so far, following my intuition has been rewarding. But this time the intuition was foreboding--something was rotten in the state of Denmark.
Between the Last Lecture assembly and my first class, I had one hour to go home and check the hive. Fortunately Nikki was free because I needed two sets of eyes.
As we pulled up the beautifully drawn out comb, we saw it was dotted with queen supercedure cells (the hive was making plans for a new queen) Something was amiss with the original queen.
A hive will build queen cells under two conditions--1. if they are planning to swarm (a natural way of dealing with growth and propagation), or 2. If the queen is weak or sick.
Capped brood covered one side of a comb, but it wasn't beautifully patterned and every hexagon wasn't filled. It was more spotty than desired. This meant at one time, the queen was present and laying eggs. But we couldn't find the queen and we didn't find any new eggs or larvae. The queen seemed to have abdicated her thrown.
But these new queen cells were not swarm cells. Swarm cells are built around the edge and at the bottom of the comb. These were mid-comb. What had gone wrong in the hood? The hive?
I am supposed to wait one week to open the hive again and see if a new queen has emerged and begun her all-important queen job.
Re-queening the hive or supercedure appears to be as violent as the historical requeening in Henry's court. "Off with her head!" Literally. The new queen will emerge, emit a high pitched hum announcing she has arrived and move to the other queen cells and sting the competitors to their deaths. Or two queens will emerge and fight to the death.
Ah nature.
I've tried to be a beekeeper with an intuitive openness and so far, following my intuition has been rewarding. But this time the intuition was foreboding--something was rotten in the state of Denmark.
Between the Last Lecture assembly and my first class, I had one hour to go home and check the hive. Fortunately Nikki was free because I needed two sets of eyes.
As we pulled up the beautifully drawn out comb, we saw it was dotted with queen supercedure cells (the hive was making plans for a new queen) Something was amiss with the original queen.
A hive will build queen cells under two conditions--1. if they are planning to swarm (a natural way of dealing with growth and propagation), or 2. If the queen is weak or sick.
Capped brood covered one side of a comb, but it wasn't beautifully patterned and every hexagon wasn't filled. It was more spotty than desired. This meant at one time, the queen was present and laying eggs. But we couldn't find the queen and we didn't find any new eggs or larvae. The queen seemed to have abdicated her thrown.
But these new queen cells were not swarm cells. Swarm cells are built around the edge and at the bottom of the comb. These were mid-comb. What had gone wrong in the hood? The hive?
I am supposed to wait one week to open the hive again and see if a new queen has emerged and begun her all-important queen job.
Re-queening the hive or supercedure appears to be as violent as the historical requeening in Henry's court. "Off with her head!" Literally. The new queen will emerge, emit a high pitched hum announcing she has arrived and move to the other queen cells and sting the competitors to their deaths. Or two queens will emerge and fight to the death.
Ah nature.
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