Queen Hope, daughter of Queen Belladonna, was united with the colony of her sister Queen Inez at the end of the 2023 season. Both colonies were small, and stood a better chance of survival united, so I moved Queen Hope’s brood box to sit above the brood box on Queen Inez’s hive, separating the two brood boxes by a sheet of newspaper. Before this uniting, I removed Queen Inez - so Queen Inez’s hive became Queen Hope’s.

This “newspaper method” of uniting is supposedly foolproof. But when I looked in the hive a couple of weeks later, I thought my foolishness had prevailed. Queen Hope was nowhere to be seen, and nor was any young brood or eggs. The only brood were older and would have developed from eggs laid by Queen Inez. Had Queen Inez’s bees killed their Aunt, Queen Hope? It seemed so. Queen Hope’s colony had been small, and since it was their brood box that was moved to the Queen Inez hive, rather than vice versa, the flying bees of Queen Hope’s colony would have been left behind and joined Queen Elizabeth’s hive which shared the same hive stand. This would have left only the gentle young house bees and brood with Queen Hope, whereas Queen Inez’s colony had its full complement of bees so would have been well able to mount an attack to avenge the recent loss of their queen. I should have done the uniting the other way round, moving Queen Inez’s brood box from its stand to Queen Hope’s. The reason I didn’t do it that way was that I didn’t want to leave Queen Inez’s flying bees adrift - her hive stood alone, so any returning foragers would have found themselves homeless, whereas bees returning to a missing Queen Hope hive would be able to join the neighbouring hive of Queen Elizabeth. But I could’ve found ways around that. Anyway, what was done was done, and I counted the Queen Hope hive to be doomed. I removed the H stone from the roof, didn’t give them any food for winter, and didn’t administer any oxalic acid treatment for varroa when I treated the other hives.

I almost wrote an Apiary Adventure at the time, which might have been called “We have lost Hope” if it hadn’t been in such poor taste.

But observing the hive this spring, I have been curious. First of all, bees have been flying to and from that hive in reasonable number, albeit less than the other colonies. And today there were many foragers returning with baskets packed with yellow pollen.

Why do bees bring home a mass of pollen? To feed their hungry brood.

It was a warm, still day, so I took off the roof to take a look. The bees were defensive - consistent with queenlessness. The top brood box just had empty combs and angry bees. I moved it away. The lower brood box had even more angry bees. I removed an end frame to make space, and levered out the central frame from the brood box. It was hard to remove, as the bees seemed to have built an additional “lung” of comb in a gap, which fell down as I drew the frame out. The comb was dark, and at first I couldn’t see anything, but on moving it into the light I saw…worker brood at all stages, healthy and in regular formation. These larvae could only have been produced by a queen.

Queen Hope? It must be. The bees would surely not have been able to produce a new queen and get her mated so late last season, and anyway I had not seen queen cells in the box.

So, a spring miracle! And another instance of (i) the beekeeper messes it up and (ii) the bees, left well alone, put it right.

But of course, I haven’t entirely left well alone. I opened that hive today, disturbing bees, moving box and frames around and breaking comb in the centre of the brood nest. I didn’t see Queen Hope. I hope that she is safe, and was not crushed or injured by that falling comb. I will look again when the combination of weather and free time next allows it.

Meanwhile, I have restored the H stone to its rightful place on the hive roof.

Hope Springs Eternal