Queen Bee

It won't go down as my best effort but I was rather pleased to get a shot of the queen bee in an observation hive.  A visit to Tilgate Park with the photographic group found us in the Nature Centre.  They have a good array of subjects to photograph although it wasn't my finest day. I changed the lens that I should have taken with me as I exited the door,  

Reflections in glass, fences and wire netting abounded, making a clear view of anything quite a challenge. I did get a few passable shots but prefered this.   The observation hive was in a timber shed with very poor light.  The queen was easy to find as the colony was a weak one.  I'm used to opening a hive and finding thousands of bees rather than the meagre hundreds in this one.  They weren't healthy, the capped store cells were blackened, there weren't many brood cells for the queen to lay in and the malformation of many wings is a tale of a varroa infestation.   The queen seemed healthy enough and I saw her passing from cell to cell laying.  

It is an observation hive, set up for educational purposes only and there isn't enough room to create a strong colony. It still saddens me to see it so close to collapse. The queen is the torpedo shaped bee which is lighter coloured than the others.  I highlighted her in the thumbnail.  BrightNBreezy, member of the group who has just joined us here on Blipfoto,  held the torch of my phone up for me in an attempt to get a little more light to the scene. 

There were other hives outside that had plenty of movement at their entrances and in the gardens there is no shortage of plants that will provide pollen in plenty for them to harvest.  

It was another great day out and we were, once again, blessed with fine weather.