“The Making of a Queen” by Annie Watson, Thistle Hill Studio

In this picture you see a “queen cup” — an elongated cell, looking a bit like an ice cream cone, that contains a queen bee larva. The bees are making a new queen, which they do when the queen dies, is failing, or has left the hive with a swarm. A fertilized egg develops into a queen when the workers feed a fertilized egg with a rich food made of honey, pollen, and enzymes, called Royal Jelly. Because she will be a very large bee, she needs a larger cell to grow in.

The queen bee is born with all of the eggs she’ll ever lay in her extra-long abdomen. Once she has mated she deposits one tiny white egg in each cell of honey comb at the rate of up to 2,000 eggs a day at the peak of the spring buildup. But this egg laying is tied to the sun, seasons, and length of the day. The summer solstice having passed on June 21, the queen has begun to slow down in preparation for winter.

The slightly convex cells at the top of the picture are capped honey cells, while the reddish brown, slightly puffy cells further down contain larvae. The uncapped yellow cells contain pollen. Note the “courtier” bees who are tending the queen cell.

“Blackberry Bloom”  by Annie Watson, Thistle Hill Studio

One of my favorite events of the year is the blossoming of the wild blackberries (rubus alligheniensis). You can tell where the plants are from the rich spicy, woody fragrance that the unopened flower buds give off in April and May, heralding the coming of the flowers. It’s a scent I look forward to every spring.

A blackberry patch in bloom becomes a sea of white that looks like summer snow. Then come the bees to gather nectar and pollen for their young, and in so doing, spread the
pollen. The flowers and bees are a promise of the luscious fruit that will ripen about a
month after pollination.

Did you know that berries must be pollinated by insects in order to make fruit? If the bees
and other pollinators don’t fertilize the flowers, the berries will not develop or will develop
unevenly. For more about pollination go to the Science with me! web site.

Annie Watson, Thistle Hill Studio

“The Gift of the Dandelion”  by Annie Watson, Thistle Hill Studio

May is such an important and busy month for the honey bees. The colony is rearing brood, and many plants are flowering, providing food for the growing population. Ground ivy and dandelions are everywhere. Dandelions are such an important food source for bees. Many people consider them pest plants and spend hours trying to dig them out or pour toxic chemicals on the lawn to kill them. But the bees really need the dandelion’s nectar and pollen to support the colony. Besides, what can be more cheerful than a bright yellow dandelion flower with a bee on it?