We’re delighted to sponsor a beehive at the North Somerset Beekeepers‘ apiary at Langford. We hope to post regular updates on Hive 27 as we get them from the beekeepers themselves.

25th June 2023

It was another hot day at the NSBK Apiary. This week it was easy to identify the Queen as we had marked her red last Sunday. We use an international colour system of 5 colours:- white, yellow, red, green & blue. This was created to identify the life expectancy of a Queen bee.

We knew that handling her last week had not caused her a problem as there were fresh eggs laid in the brood nest. The brood nest is the heart of the colony, usually starting from the middle frame of the hive where it is warmest. This is where the eggs, larvae and pupae are found.

The rest of the colony consists normally of one Queen, worker bees (females) and drones (males). In a thriving hive there can around 60,000 workers and several hundred drones. The Queen lays her eggs on comb in the middle of a frame and works her way to the edge. She can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day in the height of summer.

The life cycle of a Queen, worker and drone honey bee are slightly different. Looking at worker bees for example… once a fertilised egg is laid in a cell it takes around 3 days for it to hatch into a lava. The cell is then capped and 6 days approx. later the lava becomes a pupa. 12 days on the pupa emerges as a fully grown adult worker honey bee. Amazing!

Ruth and Holly