PHOENIX
Type: British Black
DOB: August 2022 (yellow)
RELATIONS: ROGUE (daughter), STORM (daughter), CLOVER (daughter), TIGER (daughter).
CAUSE SUPPORTED: Portsmouth Community
LENGTH OF SERVICE: May 2023 - Present
STATUS: Retired
ROGUE
STORM
CLOVER
TIGER
Life in 2023
All through 2023 Phoenix and her colony produced 5 supers full of honey. I took 4 for myself and I left one on the hive for the bees to feed on during the colder winter months.
She was also the main attraction for many children coming for workshops with us. To spot and meet our most productive and popular queen.
A FAILING QUEEN
Phoenix survived the winter and once the weather had warmed up she began to increase her egg laying. But she started 2024 with an issue. She, for what ever reason was laying multiple eggs in a single cell. Which is a sign that she is failing as a productive queen.
Now in this situation many beekeepers would simply kill the queen and either replace her, or get the bees to raise a new queen. But I don’t like to kill any living creature. So I was given the idea by a beekeeper in France with a similar approach to put Phoenix into a smaller colony, a queen less one, and to let her live out her last days peacefully and without the demand a busy hive brings.
The worker bees did try to supersede her. Which is where they make a new queen and kill the old queen, but Phoenix found these cells and killed them before a new queen could emerge.
So phoenix had to be put in to retirement.
Who knows this move could sort out her issue of egg laying. Only time will tell.
ACHIEVEMENTS
HIVE AID 2024
Phoenix came with us to a show in Portsmouth, staying inside an observation hive.
Life in 2024
Once in her retirement home, Phoenix was still laying egg upon egg and producing many drones bees (males). Her new colony tried to replace her by making new Queens and queen cells. but to my surprise Phoenix kept on killing them.
She has a lot of fight in her!
Then something incredible happened. She started laying properly again and she started to produce workers! She even made it into Winter for a second year.