Mini-update on the Disc Hive

I've been visiting the Disc Hive at the farm from time to time. I'm pleased to report that it has not been knocked over by wildebeest. However, Queen Irene's colony are a defensive bunch. The eldest bees in this colony will pre-date Queen Irene, as they will be daughters of the previous queen, Queen Honey. It may be that it is these elder bees who are the defensive ones, in which case the mood of the colony may change over the next few weeks as these workers die off and are replaced by Queen Irene's daughters, if those bees have a mellower temperament. But my hopes are not high. I fear Queen Irene's daughters will be little better.

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I have taken honey from the Disc Hive, and it was similar to the honeys from the hives at the home apiary - unsurprising since most of it would have been made by the bees in their previous location before the move. It will be interesting to see how the honey they are now working on, which will be made from nectar they collect from the surrounding fields, compares with the honey from the hives at home.

As you may be able to see from the photographs above, I have written on the super "CuBA 1". This is done by burning the wood with a pyrography pen. The numbering of the supers is to help me track which super was put on which hive and when, as I can make a note of the super number in my records. It may also be a useful security feature, akin to marking valuables with a post code, as a deterrent to theft and/or to assist recovery. Though the Disc Hive occupants seem quite capable of deterring potential thieves by themselves, with their host of determined guard bees.

Disc Hive goes to the Farm

The Disc Hive bees have been having big adventures this year.

Headed by Queen Honey, they surged into growth this spring, and I only just split them in time to stop a mid-April swarm. After that, I split the top colony again, by transferring Queen Honey and half the brood into a nucleus box, leaving the remainder to raise a new queen. But despite my interventions, they swarmed. I think I left too many queen cells in the lower colony, so they produced more than one new queen, and had enough flying bees for one of those queens to leave with a swarm.

Sadly, despite marching theatrically into a new hive as you can see in the Gallery video, that swarm has ended up being queenless. Perhaps the swarm queen and her swarm parted ways. Perhaps she didn't mate successfully. Perhaps she was injured during my inexpert swarm collecting. Whatever, the swarm are unhappily living out the rest of their days as laying workers.

Meanwhile, back in the Disc Hive, Queen Irene has ascended to the throne. I discovered her presence by surprise, when I was preparing to re-introduce Queen Honey to that hive after the Bee Inspector had reported it to be queenless. Queen Irene is the daughter of Queen Honey, and probably a younger sister or half-sister of the queen who left with the swarm. Although perhaps there's an outside chance she actually is the queen who left with the swarm, who somehow sneaked back home again!

Anyway, I do hope Queen Irene is a brave but gentle queen, because at this tender young age she has already gone on a big adventure. Yesterday, in the early morning, we took the Disc Hive to a new home in the Cambridgeshire countryside. A local farmer has welcomed the bees on to his land, where hopefully they will make themselves useful pollinating field beans. I'm not sure yet whether I worry more about them now they are there (are they ok? has the hive been knocked over by wildebeest? when can I visit?) or when they were here (are they causing a nuisance? is there a bee caught in my hair again?). But, at any rate, it's a big move - we now have apiary number two!