I was almost done with a post on Bee Math. The concept that if you know how long things take, you’ll know with a high degree of certainty when certain things will happen. For example, I got the idea after popping the cover of Yard Hive I and finding a handful of queen cells (DAMNIT). I know immediately that my queen has died and they are working to replace her. Now because I know that once a queen cell is capped, the queen will hatch in 8 days, and should have mated and will be laying eggs in 20 days, then all I had to do was mark the calendar and come back to mark my new queen...

Only, the day before I should have DEFINITELY had a laying queen, I decided to look in the hive and every single queen cell was still there. Like...ALL of them. I called a mentor in a panic and explained that by the bee math, they should be out and laying eggs. The profound response I got was, “Yeah. Bees don’t read those books. They do what they want”.

So first, I am struck with how little I continue to know. It really is humbling that after 4 years I’m just learning that bees can stray from the timeline I’ve set for them (turns out, they’re more like guidelines).

Now, what would cause such a thing?!? Well, it appears that in seasons of frequent rain that, somehow, the hive or the queen slows down the growth process of the queen.

So what is the solution here? How do I know a queen is on the way and she’s not dead in one of those cells? The prescription for my troubles was “be(e) patient”. If you know me, you know that patience is my top virtue (hahaha. You too, right?), but despite my anxiety and skepticism, I opened up the hive today to find eggs and larva. The girls were a little testy, so I didn’t stick around long enough to put my eyes on her and mark her, but I know she’s there. And now I know that nothing happens quite as the calendar says it’s going to when it comes to beekeeping.

~ Chris, The Boxing Beekeeper