THE ROSEBUD MOTEL DIARIES

A huge apology for missing last month’s blog. I have, metaphorically speaking, been sitting on the naughty step berating myself for not settling down to write it. But look on the bright side… this one could be longer. (Maybe not such a bright side, I hear some of you mutter!)

Why the delay?

Where to even begin?

I can hardly blame the bees — they’ve just been carrying on being bees. Although I should slip in here that they’ve been struggling too, as have I, these past couple of months. So, I’m pinning the blame on a whole cocktail of culprits: the weather, climate change, wasps, moving my girls yet again to a new apiary, mischievous bees, and now hornets for good measure. Throw in the personal ‘trauma’ of moving house and finding myself in what can only be described as the equivalent of Schitt’s Creek’s Rosebud Motel (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3526078/). If you haven’t watched this brilliant series, the name alone should paint you a vivid enough picture of the state of the house we bought!) and, well, you get the idea.

So those are the excuses. And now, as I sit here on a quiet Bank Holiday Monday, hiding away in the garden to finally write this blog, it’s time to give you the proper explanation of what’s really been happening in the hives since I last wrote to you.

WASPS

July was a shocker for wasps… they came by the barrel-load and most of them moved into my shed!

I’ve been keeping bees for over a decade now (I’ve actually lost count), and never before have I seen the sheer volume of wasps that appeared this summer. Apparently, 2025 has officially been a bad year for wasps overall. And no — it’s not because they were all in my shed, although it certainly felt like it.

The truth is that the warm, sunny, and very dry spring gave more queens than usual a head start. By June, colonies were thriving. Then the summer heatwaves and drought hit, drying up their natural food supplies — insects and sugary sap. Hungry workers turned desperate, raiding sheds, (notabley mine), fruit trees, picnic tables, and, most alarmingly, honeybee hives. They have been hungrier, bolder and far more determined.

Let’s move away from the wasps and visit…

A NEW SITE FOR THE GIRLS

My previous apiary site was always temporary. My garden is far too small (and my husband is allergic to stings), so I’d been hoping someone local might come knocking with an offer of a bee-friendly patch.

Meanwhile, my colonies were not thriving. Two lost their queens and produced emergency queen cells. Nothing came of those queen cells. I have no idea why.

One of my colonies developed laying workers, but I caught it early. In cases like this, you can unite the hive with a neighbouring colony using the newspaper method. The scent of the queen in the healthy hive usually stops the laying workers from continuing their mischief.

If laying workers are left too long, however, the process is more drastic. The entire colony must be taken at least 100 metres from its original site, and all the bees shaken out onto the ground. You then put a hive in the empty spot, making sure it contains drawn comb, food stores, foundation, and—importantly—a frame from another hive that has larvae and eggs (but no bees).

Here’s why this works: the flying bees will return to what they see as their hive and, with luck, raise a new queen from the frame of eggs. The laying workers, on the other hand, are younger bees and won’t be able to fly back.

The other colony didn’t produce a queen either. There were queen cells, but they never came to anything. Lack of drones, maybe? I honestly don’t know.

Not wanting a repeat of the laying-worker drama, I decided to buy a queen. But she never settled, and the colony quickly replaced her with emergency queen cells. For a brief moment, it looked promising—two perfect queen cells, one open, one still capped. But no queen ever appeared.

Before things slid back into another laying-worker situation, my friend Sally came to the rescue with a queen-right nuc. I united it with the struggling hive and hoped for the best.

Confused? I was—and honestly, I still am! But here’s the good news: both hives I united are thriving now. Boom!

Then, by chance, a lovely guy who was cutting my hedge mentioned that his employer had always wanted bees. He took me to meet her, and I was shown the potential site: We walked through a glorious garden, across meadowland, past a beautiful pond, and into an apple orchard. It was idyllic. My heart said yes, but my head heard the voice of wise Bill Fisher, our former association president: “Always make sure your bees are accessible, Meriet.” Carrying supers across meadows, up hill and down dell? Not ideal, so I thanked her politely and declined.

But she wasn’t having it. She handed me the keys to a golf buggy and said, “Try before you buy.” Long story short, I did. Once again my friend Sally, who was having the opposite problem to me and was over-run with hives, (I’m not bitter), gave me another hive of bees which I used as a test at the new potential site. Within weeks it was bursting with honey. Supers full. I drove them back across the meadow in the buggy, laughing to myself that only I could end up with an apiary so inaccessible that I need a golf buggy to get to it!

As the hive seemed to thrive, I decided enough was enough what with driving between the two sites and with Sally’s help, and after a fair bit of wheelbarrow-wrangling, we moved the remaining three hives to their new home. All my bees together at last. I told the lady I would test the site for a year and take it from there. Deep joy.

Or so I thought.

Because on my very first visit, who should be hovering at the entrance but a hornet. Within seconds it had snatched one of my girls and carried her off. I stood there in horror, knowing full well what would happen next — the bee would be chewed into a protein “meatball” for hornet larvae. Nature at its most brutal.

Needless to say, I now have hornet traps in place. Yes, I know I’m a vegetarian. Yes, I know hornets and wasps play their part in the ecosystem. But… when it comes to protecting my bees, my loyalty is firmly with them. Please don’t send hate mail. Thank you kindly, thank you muchly, thank you very much.

Closing Thoughts & LESSONSIN RESILIENCE

It’s been a tough season for me, but as I always say… think like a honeybee. Honeybees have been on this planet for over 100 million years. They’ve endured ice ages, storms, droughts, and no doubt many “bad years,” yet still they’ve carried on — gifting us a world full of blossoms and fruit. That’s worth holding onto.

Yes, things are changing. Climate change is undeniably part of the picture. This summer, everything seemed to come at once — nectar and pollen in a rush — leaving the bees with very little later in the season.

For the first time, I’ve left each colony with a super full of their own honey. They’ve had their share of struggles this year, just as I have, and it feels only fair to let them keep what they’ve worked so hard for. I was blessed with a lovely batch of honey from the spring flow, and I’m truly grateful for that gift.

Now the bees have the autumn ivy ahead of them, a final feast to help top up their stores before winter settles in. The hornets are still a constant pressure, so it’s not an easy time for them — but then, this year hasn’t been an easy one for me either. Somehow, though, we carry on together: me watching over them, them reminding me daily what resilience looks like. Their cupboards are full, and so is my hope that, despite everything, we’ll both make it through the season ahead.

Until next time, may we all take a lesson from the bees: keep going, keep working, and trust that brighter days will come.

If you’d like to see some of these dramas unfold — from wasps in the shed to hornets at the hive — you’ll find the videos over on my YouTube channel: @mdthequeenbee. And if you enjoy following along, do hit subscribe so you don’t miss the next instalment of the Rosebud Motel Diaries!