On July 15th Martin brought our new Queen. She is a Carnolian  Bee from California. She arrived in the afternoon in a small wooden box and a few  attendant bees with her. One end of the box had a hole in it filled with fondant candy.     We immediately  ” installed”  her little box between  the 2 frames of borrow bees from our first hive.    She was  introduced to her new hive  with 3 frames of the bees borrowed from Maria, our #1  colony.  Maria’s bees, at first,  wanted to destroy her because she was not their queen.  They spent several days  eating through the candy  trying to get her but in the process  got used to her pheromone and accepted her as their new queen in the new colony .  The candy was gone and she could now escape to begin her reign of number 2 colony . She is different looking  than our Italian Queen. She has a long blackish body with quick distinctive movements.  Her colony was so small  at just half of one deep box. We fed the hive some sugar water to get her started but noticed after several days that most of  the bee activity was actually her neighbor bees robbing the  sugar water and taking  it back to their hive!   We reduced the entrance to the hive and stopped feeding.           Universal law- don’t rob your neighbors.

I find my self watching and worrying about this hive. Marie is going gangbusters, not much action with this one . I wait anxiously for the 21 day  bee gestation period to see if bee population improves.    I then wait and wait as it continues to be quiet with few bees now that most of the borrowed bees have gone back to their original queen. Why did we need another hive?- all things were well with Maria.  This is a different story. Martin said to start feeding them again with increased sugar ratio 2:1. I find  myself counting the bees coming and going . August 5th, I count 5 bees in one minute. The other hive has so many I can not count. We name this queen Anastazia for her Slovenian descent.   ” Z ” the Bee  , a strong name , a strong bee ?!  I opened the hive on the 22nd. The hive is still small with just 5 frames full but active and we see HER!  She is commanding court with bees surrounding her. We see larvae and eggs and honey. I spread out the frames  and we  keep feeding .  I hope she will be okay as we are closing in on summer and winter cold will be moving in. Are they too small to survive? Will they have enough honey and bees to stay warm …….        Oh mother beekeeper ………