by Ashley Johnson MMNN Contributor

I went to check out the Potlotek Apiary with the ALHS students. The apiary is located right next to the Potlotek Greenhouse. We got there and had a quick talk with Samantha and Lloyd from Tuckamore Homestead about bee safety. We then got dressed in beekeeper’s suits and headed over to the hives.

The beekeepers were putting smoke on and near the hives before we were told to come over. When bees sense danger, they release an alarm pheromone to signal the others to be ready to attack. The smoke interferes with the bees sense of smell so they cannot detect the pheromone and it keeps them more calm. There were still bees flying around but most of the bees were crawling around the hive boxes.

We were learning a lot about the apiary and how they do things to sustain the health of the bees. As she was showing us one of the honeycomb frames, we got to see one of the queens! There is usually one queen per box. They said we were lucky to have even spotted her. There were eight of us present so they had pulled out another frame to show the others. Just as we were looking at that frame, we spotted another queen. The beekeeper’s jaws dropped.

Samantha Iannetti, one of the beekeepers, told us that there was a very rare occurrence that a hive could have two queens. This can happen when a queen isn’t producing enough eggs and the bees decide to raise another queen. When the new queen hatches, either the worker bees will kill the old queen or the two queen ...