Oh no the queen is dead?

Bee-keeping throws up strange events so that you have to change plans rapidly. Yesterday  we had an event at Snakey Lane allotments with 2 new bee-keepers where we accidentally killed the queen and it was entirely my fault. One of the hives had an unmarked queen which has always been very illusive so I decided to mark her with a blue spot to make her easy to find.

I captured her in a queen marking cage and painted a blue spot on her thorax and then released her into the hive in this process one of two things happened either the smell of the marking paint made the workers think she was an invader and they attacked her or I injured her on placing the frame back but we noticed a cluster of bees around the queen who looked very ill and could not walk. she then appeared to fall to the bottom of the hive.

The only positive thing is that she had been laying lots of eggs and the colony will create new queen cells. The other benefit is that it was our plan to create more colonies for each of the new bee-keepers (my trainees) on the site and this is the opportunity about a month earlier than planned.

As for the Hatton Road site it is steaming along and looks like this