So, I called around and found an apiary that had one last queen. I promptly picked her up and installed the cage in the hive. This all happened about 3 weeks ago. I am waiting to see if the hive will recover. I look in the window everyday. I am really nervous how few bees there are. Perhaps, I re-queened too late. We will see. Of course, if the hive does not survive this year, I will try again next ... I am still on the waiting list for New England raised bees.
These type of set-backs only reinforces that I have much to learn. Really, is that not what life is all about? My MooseBoots path continues....
Yup, sounds your queen left with some of her followers..I hope your new one can get things back on track. I think your last comment about setbacks reinforcing our learning process hit the nail on the head. Sometimes it seems that we are doing everything "right" - we set the right intentions, we work hard, we give it our best shot - and it flops. Happened to me a few weeks ago at a one day market. I had worked for 2 days beforehand, baking and getting ready, and came home with almost everything I took to sell :(. The next step was to figure out, "What just happened? What am I to learn from this?"
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I waited to see how you did with your bees before getting mine ;) I might just get a neighbour (4 miles away or so) to set up some hives on our property, in exchange for some honey, then I can still enjoy the bees...and the honey!
Good luck, really enjoy reading about your MooseBoots journey... Julie
Julie, we'll see how they do. I understand that this has been a hard year for bees in my area ... it has been hot and dry. I have started feeding them again in hopes of helping them. Thank you for following along on my journey.
ReplyDeleteI think we've been queenless from the beginning and just had a laying worker. The bummer is that the laying worker only laid drone eggs and all of those drones ate all of the honey. Dang!
ReplyDeleteI hope the new queen is able to reestablish the colony ... I hope there's enough time. Seeing that empty hive just makes my heart weep.
Wendy, we will see. I am pretty distraught as well.
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