I’ve decided Olga can’t be the queen of our beehive because she’s Russian, and everyone knows Russia was ruled by emperors and empresses or tsar and tsarinas.
I’m going with “Empress Olga,” and the reason I’m mentioning her is because she lives!
The Engineer had a quick peek in that hive today while I was at work, and I’m very impressed that he not only found her, he also managed to capture her on camera.
You may notice Olga is marked with a white dot, unlike Her Royal Blueness in the OH, Girls hive. This is because she is a 2021 queen, and Her Royal Blueness was a 2020 queen.
White and blue are two of the International Queen Bee Marking Colors. The other colors are yellow, red, and green, based on the digit the year ends in.
1 or 6 are White Dots (2021 and 2016)
2 or 7 are Yellow (2022 and 2017)
3 or 8 are Red (2023 and 2018)
4 or 9 are Green (2024 and 2019)
5 or 0 are Blue (2025 and 2020)
We’ve had both marked and unmarked queens. When we buy a queen or package or nuc, we pay the extra dollar or so to have her marked. But when we split our hives, and they are successful at requeening themselves, we end up with an unmarked queen.
This is because the only time we tried marking a queen, she ended up dead.
We won’t do that again.
As you might expect, it’s much easier to spot a bee with a colored dot on her back than one without. I’m woefully bad at finding her in any case. Thankfully, The Engineer is slightly better, but there are still many times we don’t see her and have to be happy with just seeing eggs and larvae.
In other news, the workers from the OH, Girls split have been foraging.
And, it’s been very hot (upper 80s and low 90s F), which means the OH, Girls hive is bearding most days. We’ve noticed our Saskatraz hives seem to do this more than the other ones we’ve had.
No doubt the swift change of weather is as much a shock to them as it is to us. You may recall me mentioning (whining about) the snow on Mother’s Day, May 9. Immediately afterwards, the weather turned, and it’s been hot, without rain for the last week or so.
Weather permitting, we plan to perform a more detailed inspection of the Olgas and the OH, Girls split on Tuesday. If there’s any news to report, you’ll read it here first. 🙂
The Byrd and the Bees 