We have generally been fortunate with our bees- there have certainly been tricky times and disastrous times like when a fallen branched smashed a hive. Over the years it has been really helpful to have two hives- when one’s weakened we we have had the other to help strengthen, either by sharing honey frames or brood frames.

Currently though we have issues with both hives! In October both hives had brood and queens, but one was a bit aggressive so we figured we needed to requiem, which we did. Since then we have lost both queens in both hives, so both were requeened (one for the second time).

Over the past two -three weeks, the hives have settled and we can be pottering out there with no issues. Great, we thought- the queens must have been accepted as the hives are now settled.

But no, today revealed no sign of queens in either hive, no sign of brood in one hive and only drone brood and multiple queen cells in the other. This means we must have either a drone laying queen (who wasn’t mated properly) or a laying worker bee (who only ever lay drones).

We have never had this situation before, so after researching we now know how to tell the two situations apart- laying workers lay multiple eggs in each cell, whereas a drone laying queen still lays one egg per cell. In each case though, the hive is usually aggressive, but ours aren’t!

So, tomorrow it is back into each hive with a magnifying glass to see if we have multiple eggs in cells, single eggs in cells, or no eggs in cells……….. then we make a plan.