It was a very exciting day today – I had an unexpected parcel arrive which contained two stunning chicken jumpers! A friend from home who is a knitting whizz has made them for our new rescue chickens. I ran down to the allotment to put them into the shed, ready for use at any moment!
Steve turned up at the allotment with an exciting parcel – a box with a Queen bee! It was a yellow plastic box with fondant icing at one end as a food supply. The Queen was in the box with three worker bees to look after her.
Phil opened up the nuc box and Steve put in the Queen. He secured the box between two of the frames with a pin and the bees almost instantly went to find the box. They will get used to her pheromones over the next 24 hours and hopefully accept her. If they do, it will be a couple of weeks before she starts laying.
Updates to follow!
The Good Life Crewe 
Wow that’s exciting about the new queen. Does you queen’s holder also have a plug (I think it’s honey?) that the workers have to eat through in order to release her? Our mentor told us because that takes time they slowly get used to her scent.
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It was so exciting to see it – I have always missed it through being at work before. The plug is just on one side if the box and is made not of honey but icing. The workers in with the Queen will eat it from the inside and the colony from the outside.
Because the colony doesn’t have a Queen it’s more likely they will accept her. However there is no guarantee as they have the potential to grow their own Queen. But we didn’t see any Queen cups in the frames we put into the new hive.
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