Laurence Edwards checks a hive eight weeks after adding a Carpathian queen and finds it expanded from 5 frames to 18, packed with brood and honey. The Carpathian bees are darker and calmer than the existing Buckfast strain, with a strong brood pattern that signals fast spring buildup and good overwintering potential.
Eight weeks ago, I introduced a Carpathian queen into this colony here. Today, we're going to go inside and see how she's getting on. Our Carpathian queens are raised by Melita bees, and they are top, top quality. We've sold a huge amount of them this year, and I just thought I'd do an update showing you how she's getting on in this colony. Look at the difference between the Buckfast bees that are in here that started from the original split, and then the Carpathian brood that is emerging from my queen. As you can see, nice big strong colony to start off with. And they've pretty much filled out this double brood box now. Started off as a 5-frame nuc, added my Carpathian queen in, and then wow, 8 weeks later they are completely full. So I'm gonna split this one off as well, making up some splits later on this year. And this one here is prime for splitting. But look at that, starting off with some beautiful honey frames. Very, very happy. Nice good amount of drones on there as well. Wow, that's a really, really good start. So just double-checking my queen's not on there. I'm just going to pop that frame down so you can see. Super, super calm. And this is, this is a big colony. This is 16, well, 18, no, 18 frames of bees, and they're covering every single frame here. Lots and lots of brood. Wow, brood in all stages as well. Got eggs all the way down to the bottom of both sides there, but that is an emerged frame of brood there, and then another wonderful frame of brood there. I always like to see a bit of drone brood on the colony because it means It's reached the point where it's strong enough to sustain itself and then it wants to start pumping out its own genetics. And on that note, I've found my queen. So let me give you a close-up of our Carpathian Queen. So there she is. She's marked green for 2025. Beautiful long abdomen, very, very dark, descended from the Carniolan. So you're getting that super, super dark color, extended abdomen, and the ability for a rapid, rapid spring buildup. The Carpathian Queen would be an ideal candidate, I think, for colonies going up to the head They boom at the right time of the year, and I think this one here has probably won the race in terms of the most rapid expansion out of all of the colonies that I put my different genetics up here. They'll tend to overwinter in slightly smaller cluster sizes, don't have as much propolis as, say, the Caucasian, but you're still getting that nice dark-looking bee. Now you can see some of the difference in color of the bees on here. The more orange bees are the Buckfast, and then the ones that are around here, the slightly darker ones, they are the Carpathian offspring. Not quite as noticeable as the Caucasian where they're a bit darker, but these ones here are a little bit lighter, still quite fluffy. But the main thing for me is that they are super, super calm. So just give you a close-up on that camera as well. There you can see the Carpathian Queen. The, the farmer's just driven past there and he said that he was doing some muck spreading, so to keep the car out of the way. And yep, he's definitely doing muck spreading. That absolutely stinks, but yes, we like farmers. So Carpathian queens, are they good? I'll let you be the judge of that. Look at this brood pattern here. Beautiful brood, highly prolific, super nice dark bees, wonderful white cappings on the honey as well. And I cannot even flip that frame around because that is completely full to the brim with honey. These bees have done an excellent job filling up every single one of those frames, double brooded. I cannot wait to see what they do in 2025.
