In Part One we left the bees in the blue nuc leaderless, with the new queen having unexpectedly flown off into the undergrowth. With the as-yet unnamed queen MIA, what was I to do?
The answer, quite simply, was nothing at all. There was no chance of me finding her outside the hive, so I had to sit it out and hope that she came back.
I waited until just after six o'clock, and then headed back to look inside the nucleus. I checked one frame, then another, and another... and....
Imagine my relief on spotting the queen wandering nonchalantly around on frame number 4. I wonder if she enjoyed her unexpected day out?! This time I decided to mark her using the queen marking cage, just to make sure that nothing could go wrong. Here's a picture of the newly marked queen:
Having finally finished the job that I'd made a mess of earlier in the day, I removed the queen cell that I'd found earlier, and put the roof back on the blue nuc.
Later, at dusk, it was time to wave goodbye to queen Dorothy. Jessica came over to collect the other (brown) nucleus and take it to the other end of St Mark's road. Jessica decided to hive the bees straight away, which is unusual as I have always hived bees in the middle of the day. I think it's fair to say, from the number of stings Jessica received, that the bees were unimpressed. It's always good to try new things in beekeeping, but I think this will be the first and last time that I try to hive bees after sunset! Nevertheless, I hope Dorothy and her bees settle in to their new home.
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