The Black Queen

I'm so conscious of doing a million things wrong as a brand new beekeeper! Apart from fighting with that b***sted smoker every time I try to light it - and keep it lit - who knows how many mistakes are being made!? Never mind. I did my first solo inspection of the hive yesterday. I removed the roof, crownboard, contact feeder (previously an ice-cream tub) and empty super. I carefully inspected all the frames, one by one, and amazingly, spotted the Queen again. She is not difficult to spot - she is wonderfully, magically, incredibly black as the ace of spaces (see pic).

Initially I was really confused by what I spotted on the frames. At first all I could see was a field of light coloured honeycomb with the odd hexagon filled with something black. My heart dropped, thinking "Oh no, it's foulbrood of some kind". But then I took a moment to look really, really closely and I suddenly realised they were bees. Bees, upended deep into the comb, eating or cleaning or making honey, or something.

Then I wondered why the frames are all so clean and not propolised at all. I think they've been so focused on building comb and bringing in pollen and nectar, they haven't bothered yet to propolise anything together. My frames are clean because they're new - I've been learning at the beehives of old, well-used frames. I also saw a lot of brace comb between the frames. I had to go back to the catalogue today to realise that the brood box could actually take 12 rather than just 11 frames. There's too much space in the box, and I left too much space between the frames, which meant the bees are trying to build up deep enough comb to close up the spaces and make for tight "Bee Space" between the frames. I had to use my hive tool to gently break off some of the brace comb, and then bunched all the frames properly together, making sure the self-spacers touch.

Then I wondered "why can't I see any eggs or larvae, or any brood of any kind whatsoever!?" And thinking it through, slowly and logically, I suddenly remembered the Queen excluder has been keeping the Queen in for the entire week. She hasn't been laying. She must be a Virgin Queen.

So, carefully I picked up the entire brood box and moved it to one side. It wasn't stuck to the excluder at all, and I just picked it up, and upended the grid bottom to clean it - lots of debris had fallen through. Within seconds of having placed the brood box back onto the floor without the excluder, I spotted the young Queen, falling out of the front door, on her way to flight.

In the night I woke up with a start, thinking "why have I left that empty super on top? The bees need the warmth and closeness of Bee Space only for now!" I rushed down to the hive this morning and popped the roof off. Yes, that space is wrong. I need to take the super off. I've been checking today whether I bought a Bottom Bee Space or Top Bee Space hive, because I'm so worried about how tight things will get on top of the frames. Why do I worry so much? They're wild creatures and they've survived for millenia without my clumsy contribution.

So I'll slip down tonight to quietly brush some bees off the top of the frames, take off the super, and slide the crownboard back on. That'll give them the compactness they need to warm the hive up properly and focus their energies not on keeping the hive warm, or the spaces between correctly filled, but only on building comb and fetching pollen and nectar.

Later that afternoon, I snuck down to the hive again. This time I saw the Queen buzzing around outside the hive. She kept whizzing around under the hive, and floating around the corners, butting the edges. There was me, worrying again. "Is she lost? Will she find her way back? Is she checking her new home? What happens if she doesn't like it?"

I think of the Black Queen today at odd moments. Today she will be flying; flying and mating.

I'll do another inspection in ten days time and by then, if all goes well, I should see new brood. Rice-grain small eggs, and larvae up to 9 days old. I will probably not see any capped or sealed brood yet. But soon, I hope. Soon!