Little Lavender Farm
  • Home
  • Lavender 101
    • Our Lavender
    • A Brief History of Lavender
    • The Many Uses of Lavender Essential Oil
    • What is Hydrosol anyway?
    • Lavender and Anxiety
    • Lavender and Weddings
    • Lavender around the house
    • When to harvest lavender
    • Lavender and Soil Amendment
  • Field notes
    • Around the farm
    • Reflections on Life and Lavender
    • Meet the Neighbors
    • Newsletters
  • Shop
  • Recipes
    • Basics
    • Drinks
    • Appetizers
    • Side Dishes
    • Main Dishes
    • Desserts
  • Lodging
  • Gallery
  • About Us
  • Press
  • Privacy Policy

Around the Farm

Queen-making: Game of Hives Edition

4/3/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
It’s always an eventful day when Hilary Kearney, the Girl Next Door beekeeper comes to visit.  Yesterday was no exception. 

A few weeks ago, her boyfriend Tim had stopped by to check on the bees and noticed that one of the hives had lost its queen.  Now this can happen for a few different reasons -- maybe she died, maybe they swarmed. There was no way to know in this case.  But Tim spent some time transferring some of the brood from the "queenright" hive to the queenless hive in hopes that this hive would make a new queen.

How might they do that, you ask? I wondered that as well, so I researched a bit by reading both Hilary’s blog and several other resources.  This is what I learned:

1) Once the bees recognize that a new queen is needed, several of the fertilized eggs are chosen to become a potential queen and their cells are extended downward by worker bees in order to make them bigger.

2) These potential queens are fed a special concoction of royal jelly (all bee larvae are fed royal jelly for the first three days but potential queens continue on this diet).

3) After they’ve been fed a bunch of the royal jelly and about nine days after laying, the potential queens are sealed in their cell with layer of wax

4) About a week after that, the first queen will emerge (let’s call her Cercei), and using her special, non-barbed stinger, she will slay her queen sisters before they can emerge from their cells by piercing through their wax cells.

5) If, by chance, another queen emerges at the same time, they will duel to the death.

6) Queen Cercei will then begin the mating process,  take several mating flights with several male drones (if you think about it, these could be her brothers), who die after they mate.

​7) Soon after mating, the queen will start laying eggs -- up to 1500 per day

With all of this drama going on down in the hives, you can imagine how anxious I was to find out how things were progressing.  WAS there a new queen? Was there a royal murder?  Was there all kinds of bee sex going on in my backyard? Were babies being produced? Would the queendom survive?


Read More
2 Comments

    Categories

    All
    *A Circle Of Purple Sunshine
    *Bee Initiation
    *Calendu-love!
    *Farm Shopping
    *Harvesting And Distilling
    *Lavandula Angustifolia "Felice"
    *Lavender And Soil Amendment
    *Lavender In The Garden
    *Lavender Soap Making Instructions
    *Laverne And Shirley
    *Learning To Make Soap
    *Move-in Ready
    *Queenmaking: Game Of Hives Edition
    *Rebirth Of A Lavender Farm
    *Such Is Life
    *Welcome To Our Slice Of Heaven

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2021
    September 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    July 2018
    June 2018
    October 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015

    RSS Feed

    Picture

    Author

    Hello! My name is Pam Reynolds Baker and I am a mom/wife, English teacher, writer, and lavender farmer who lives in Dundee Oregon .  ​

Picture
Picture
Picture

Location

Little Lavender Farm
11011 NE Paren Springs Rd
Dundee, Oregon 97115

Open for Exclusive Events Only

    Subscribe Today!

Submit

Contact Us

  • Home
  • Lavender 101
    • Our Lavender
    • A Brief History of Lavender
    • The Many Uses of Lavender Essential Oil
    • What is Hydrosol anyway?
    • Lavender and Anxiety
    • Lavender and Weddings
    • Lavender around the house
    • When to harvest lavender
    • Lavender and Soil Amendment
  • Field notes
    • Around the farm
    • Reflections on Life and Lavender
    • Meet the Neighbors
    • Newsletters
  • Shop
  • Recipes
    • Basics
    • Drinks
    • Appetizers
    • Side Dishes
    • Main Dishes
    • Desserts
  • Lodging
  • Gallery
  • About Us
  • Press
  • Privacy Policy