The Queen Is???

So, I am almost embarrassed to write this. I apologize for being like a bad soap opera. At the last hive inspection, I could not locate the queen and my bees were acting “depressed” and overly docile. They weren’t flying much even though it was the first warm day (I was in short sleeves and I get cold easily). There was no brood or eggs that I could find. Although there was a population bump after I moved them to a dry hive which means there was recently a queen, I do not think she is there anymore. My brother has suggested that since it has been a cold spring and there may not be enough worker bees to keep brood warm, the queen has stopped laying for a while. And while that is a great theory, I think I would have seen the queen. I scoured the hive. I went over each frame like 3 times and there are not a whole lotta bees in there for her to hide behind. The only good sign I saw was that there are no dead bees in the hive, which means they are doing their housecleaning. So…queenless? You can take bets now. I’m thinking of combining this hive with my brother’s hive that could use a boost of worker bees.  I can place a queen excluder between boxes on the outside chance that there is still a queen in my hive, but I’ll bet you five dollars there isn’t. I have the feeling that unless I am lucky and catch a swarm later in the spring, or some kind beekeeper gifts me with a split, I am out of the bee business this season. Fingers Crossed.

Signs of Spring

It has been far too long since I have posted in this blog, but I’m back. I’d like to restart this blog with my favorite sign of spring so far this year.

 I found a butterfly chrysalis on a dried up branch of dill I was about to toss in the compost pile last fall. The chrysalis fell off of the dill, and, not knowing if it would be able to survive on the ground, I took it inside and placed it on my orchid plant. Over the winter I mostly forgot it was there, but kept thinking I should make some sort of enclosure for it in case it actually survived and emerged. I was a bit surprised to see this big beautiful butterfly sitting on my lime tree yesterday morning. It is too cold outside to release it, so I fed it honey water and left it on my plants. After a few feedings of honey water or diluted apple juice, it discovered the lemon blossoms and hyacinth blossoms in my office and seems to be eating normally without my help. I’ve decided not to put it in any kind of enclosure so it has room to move around. It seems to want to stay on my plant shelf and bask in the plant lights, and it looks very pretty there.

I’d like to release her when it warms up, but she doesn’t fly very well. It may be because the chrysalis was not attached properly to a branch but was rather lying on its side on a leaf. I’ve been doing some reading about keeping butterflies and it seems as though the position of the chrysalis during development may be important to proper wing development.

When I realized that the dill that grows in my garden is actually a host plant for these lovely butterflies, I started leaving patches of dill standing for the entire season so that a few generations of swallowtails can be raised on them. What I’ve realized is that more of the spring caterpillars seem to survive to adulthood, and those eggs laid later in the season suffer greater losses. The caterpillars disappear rapidly and I don’t see nearly as many larger ones in late summer and fall. I have a theory that towards the end of the season, yellow jackets are eating them. I’ve seen yellow jackets hunt and eat insects in my garden, especially my honey bees. Big fat caterpillars would be easy pickings for hunters like yellow jackets, and yellow jackets grow more plentiful in late summer and fall. This year I may collect some of the butterfly eggs and protect them from predators. I can overwinter the last generation outdoors in their chrysalis so they have a natural life cycle and don’t emerge too early in the spring.  I’d love to see more of these beauties in my garden.