Not Hawthorn

The new queen has emerged. We have not seen her, or any evidence of her presence, but the cell in the linked entry now has a neat circular hole in the end where she, possibly aided by the colony, has bitten around the bottom and pushed out a disk of wax, leaving a hole big enough for her to squeeze through. This may have happened as late as Tuesday, and it's possible she has just sat quietly in the colony since then, letting her organs mature and her wings strengthen

Her next job is to mate. This means leaving the hive, and flying to a part of the sky called a 'congregation area', where drone bees gather in expectation of unmated queens arriving to mate. The queen flies through the gathering, and drones that are strongest and fastest get to mate with her, on the wing. The act, for them, is fatal; live fast and die young. She will mate with one or two dozen drones before returning permanently to the hive. It is possible, but not inevitable, that she will make a second, or even third, mating flight in the coming days, but that is it - she will never in her life mate again

There is some risk involved - it is possible she will fall prey to a passing bird or to some other mishap. If mating is successful and she returns unscathed, she should start laying eggs within a few days. I would have been surprised if that was happening by today, but you never know. To be sure that all is well, we added a frame containing eggs from another hive to the one where we hope the new queen is imminent. If something has gone wrong, the colony will know they are queen-less, and use the eggs to raise another queen. I don't think there is a problem, but nothing wrong with a little insurance

I have marked in my diary that today is 'hawthorn day'. In this strange year, the hawthorn is largely over and the blossom falling, so no picture of frothy white blossom. I have never noticed bees taking much notice of the pictured flower before, but this year they have sought it out. Top marks if you recognise it as holly - I would not have done. The swollen green ovaries in the centre of the flowers will become red berries in November - winter food for that passing bird