Errata

In a post last year, I stated that the ratio of female to male bees in a hive is phi, or roughly 1.618, which is the same as the ratio of the number of seeds in concentric rings of a sunflower, which is the same as the ratio of one’s height to the distance between navel and feet, and a bunch of other naturally occuring phenomenon. As an astute reader pointed out, The Da Vinci Code, from where I got this particular “fact”, is a work of fiction, as is this little nugget. I still think Opus Dei is creepy.

Deed is Done

Per previous post, Michelle picked up our replacement queen, I found the old queen in Hive 1, crushed her head between my forefingers, and stuck the new queen in (with a frame of brood from Hive 2). I would have snapped some pictures, but I was running a 101 fever at the time, so it was a quick in and out operation.

Marshmallow in place.  Success!It was interesting to see the bees from Hive 1 swarm over the new queen’s cage and try to sting her through the mesh. Per instructions, we left the corks in queen cage for a couple days to give the colony some time to get used to her scent. Then, Michelle went in yesterday and replaced one of the corks with a bit of marshmallow, which they’ll eat away over the next few days. Hopefully, as soon as she’s out, she’ll get busy and start laying us some eggs!

Michelle got a snap of the marshmallowed queen cage. Enjoy.