Bella de Bon Terra Queen Bee

by Mark
(Maine)

In the Late summer of 2009 a Queen bee, an Italian honey bee, along with her attendants and workers and brood (previously laid eggs in cells) arrived from Florida after a short stopover in Bangor, she had been invited and she was ready to take up residence at Bon Terra. The Bon Terra beekeeper had everything ready; a brand new observation hive into which she was to start a new home and hopefully to live happily there after and raise thousands of new Bon Terra Bees.

Perhaps it was the bumbling of the beekeeper or perhaps she was tired from her journey and nervous about her new surroundings. The new Honey Bee Queen panicked and flew away never to be seen again and probably perished in the cold in the woods. All of her court, all of her workers and all of her eggs were now in the new hive but without their beloved Queen.

Without a Queen Bee a colony cannot long endure. Soon the workers will reach the end of their life, about 6 weeks, and with no new baby bees to replace them the colony will die. However the Honey Bee is a marvelous creature and nature has provided them with a miracle; the worker girls can create a new Queen, but can they do in time to save this colony.

The beekeeper’s mood was dire but the girls went right to work. There were eggs in the cells from the dead queen and the Bon Terra girls collected nectar from the Bon Terra flowers and turned it into Royal Jelly. When the girls sensed their beloved Queen was dead they enlarged a cell that contained a worker egg and feed it large amounts of Royal Jelly.

The beekeeper took heart. A new queen cell appeared but would the new Queen emerge and lay eggs in time to save the hive. Alas, in 21 days the new Queen emerged, but wait she looks confused she’s small and wobbly, she doesn’t look good and the girls are ignoring her as she wonders the hive alone. As the days passed, under the concerned eyes of the beekeeper, she grew stronger and became more comely more agile, though she was still not laying eggs.

The beekeeper noticed something else in the hive. The normally useless and lazy, male Drones were not slurping honey and they were venturing outside and circling high in the air and the Queen was disappearing for hours at a time. Something is up.

A day later our Honey Bee Queen is back in the hive and she’s light on her feet and doesn’t she look radiant she has an enthusiastic court of attendants and she’s laying eggs, many, many eggs, a miracle has happened; no need to scan the queen bees for sale ads,

Bella de Bon Terra is born and the Bon Terra bees are thriving.