I went to the apiary this morning for Miriam's weekly inspection. As usual, everything in her hive is fine, the bees are well-behaved and there were a few empty queen cups but no signs of swarm planning. She is such an easy-going queen...!
Then, I decided to have a sneak peak in the nucleus. The bees were noticeably calmer than on Friday - which I took to be a positive sign. Then, when I was inspecting the second frame I heard a distinctive sound, pitched between G natural (783.99 Hz) and G# (830.61 Hz) - a long note lasting around a second, followed by two shorter ones. It sounds almost like a "D" in Morse Code, but slowed down. I knew immediately what this was - a new queen, piping!
Queen piping is a phenomenon only heard when there is a newly emerged queen, usually less than a week old. There are a few opinions about why new queens do this, but the one that seems most likely is it is part of the process of establishing that the hive has a queen. Worker bees are normally aware of the presence of a queen from the pheromones she produces. However, newly-emerged queens produce less pheremone. So, the piping seems to be a way of announcing herself to the rest of the hive, to cover the period until she is producing enough pheremone. She is, literally, playing her own royal fanfare! If we were to anthropomorphise this any further, we might expect her to be a little disappointed that she has to play the fanfare herself. But that's bees for you...
The mechanism by which she does this is interesting - and I was lucky enough to watch it for myself today. The queen will stop at a certain point on the wax comb, grip with her feet and press the underside of her thorax onto the comb. She then vibrates her thorax (using her wing muscles, I assume) and the vibrations reverberate through the comb. Any worker bees on the same comb will be in no doubt that a queen is present, as they will feel the vibrations. I wonder if this also has a secondary function of strengthening the queen's wing muscles, as she will shortly have to leave the hive to go on mating flights.
So - a new queen in the nucleus - what good news!
I decided to push my luck a little further, and see what was happening in the queenless hive. The bees were still in a decidedly truculent mood, so I was pessimistic. I got to the frame with the queen cell on it, and could see the end nicely chewed until it was paper-thin. But, it was still sealed. At this point, I decided to do something I have read about, but never before tried myself. I played midwife! Carefully, with the sharp corner of my hive tool, I picked at the end of the queen cell until there was a small tear in the wax. I was delighted to see movement - the head of the queen bee inside the cell. After I'd held the frame for a minute more, she finished nibbling open the end and marched straight out of the cell. New queens move really fast - the movement is actually quite distinctive, which makes them fairly easy to spot. No piping this time, as she was walking over the backs of the worker bees. I decided to close up the hive straight away, and let her get on with the important job of getting to know her new kingdom.
So, what a difference from the frustration of Friday - two new queen bees! Yes, I am feeling very proud!
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