Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Raising queen bees

Fabien and Melody are experienced beekeepers, who have recently installed a row of hives at Gamone, in a small sloping field just opposite the house of my neighbors Jackie and Fafa. Their current project consists of raising queen bees. Last Friday, the first step was to extract a stock of young larvae from their special-purpose hives at Gamone.





The young beekeepers then took time off for a snack on the edge of the Bourne at Choranche, near the small weir that channels water to the old Rouillard mill.



Finally, they drove to the lovely house of a professional beekeeper where they performed the delicate operation of inserting tiny larvae into queen cups.





Back at Gamone, these queen cups were installed in small hives, where young worker bees will hopefully feed the larvae with royal jelly.

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