Of Bees and Bunnies

Yesterday, we processed our two recent litters of rabbits, while taking some time to show friends how to put down a rabbit as quickly and humanely as possible, and what comes after.  My farming/beekeeping/font of knowledge friend Jen dropped by, having run to the post office to pick up a queen bee that had been mailed overnight from Vancouver Island, and shared some personal tips and tricks about rabbit butchering.  All of us chatted and had a few positive hours of preparing home-grown meat for the table. I think everyone learned a thing or two!

I took a moment to discuss with Jen how we had determined that we no longer had a queen in our hive, and that our colony was likely doomed - knowing that the current bees would die off with no replacements being reared.

A few minutes after cleaning up after ourselves that evening, I received a call letting me know that the replacement queen from the Island was available, since the 'queenless' hive she had been meant for in Jen's bee yard had managed to produce their own queen after all, and things were ticking along.

Adrian and I quickly decided to ask for the queen - and a little bit of help as well. 

So, this morning, Jen came over with the queen in a little cage the size of a tic tac container (shipped via Canada Post Expresspost), and a frame of capped brood from one of her Langstroth hives.....

We shifted all of the top bars over, to make as much room as we could at one end of the hive, and placed the wood pieces which previously held the sugar syrup feeder, so we had a bit of a platform.

 

 

Jen had brushed as many bees off of a brood frame as she could, and brought the frame over in a pillow case for transport. Unfortunately for the bees that hitched a ride, our colony identified and killed them as intruders. It was a bit gruesome to watch.

 

Removing two of the built up top bars gave us just enough room to squeak the Langstroth frame in on an angle, and allow it to remain upright. 

The removed top bars, started with new, unused comb, went on either side of the foreign brood, in an attempt to insulate the brood, and to give a bit more security - and possibly to lend a reassuring, familiar scent to the remainder of our colony.



The queen was duct-taped to one side of the brood from Jen's hive, and the second top bar placed in front of her to provide warmth and security, while the bees from our top bar learn to recognize her scent and release her from her cage by eating the candy cap at one end.

We covered this decidedly unconventional compromise with a burlap sack, before putting the lid back on the hive, and this evening I will go in to (hopefully) verify that 1. Our bees have not killed the new queen, and 2. That they are congregating around her protectively and feeding her while they accept her leadership.

 

Thank you Jen, and here's hoping that our emergency measures help our hive to regain its lost numbers.