Why The Great Buzz About Bees?
Heaven soon
Why
The Great Buzz About Bees?
As I worked my way through the frames
of my
beehive this spring, it soon became
clear that
something was wrong. The bees had not
eaten
enough of the honey stores they had
accumulated last summer and, while
there were
still a good number of them, they
seemed a
little aggressive and lacking in
direction.
After a few more visits to the hive,
which I
keep on some allotments in Hampstead,
north
London, it became clear that the queen
was
missing, probably killed by the cold
snows of
December and January. Honeybees suffer
from a
wide range of pests and diseases, but
in her
case I'm sure it was just the cold and
her
age. Queens live for three to five
years, much
longer than the four or five weeks of
toil
allotted to a worker bee in summer,
but we all
go in the end. A new one arrived in
the post
from a Gloucestershire breeder, sealed
in a
tiny plastic cage with a lump of sugar
and a
few attendant workers to keep her
going on her
journey. She was introduced as gently
as
possible to the remaining workers, but
to no
avail. The old bees, set in their ways
and
reluctant to change, couldn't accept a
new
leader and rejected her, even though
it meant
their numbers would dwindle to
nothing. I'm
now looking for a fresh new colony or I
shall
be without bees to keep, which is a
sad
situation.
--
============
www.heavensoon.com
www.rapturetoheaven.com