He had a problem with one of his colonies of bees. It was the last chance for this beehive. The colony was dwindling as the previous queen had started to fail.
The bees were becoming aggressive and producing supersedure cells which is their way of saying, the queen is soon going to die - we need a replacement! The colony had dwindled from 12 frames of bees down to 3 frames of bees.
This was the last chance for his bees as the season was coming to a close. He genuinely thought the hive was going to collapse and die before it got to winter, such was the rapid state of their decline.
As a last ditch attempt to save the colony of bees, Josh inspected the colony of bees and found the old queen and killed her. He left the colony 8 days before inspecting again and removing any queen cells he found, leaving them hopelessly queenless.
Josh decided to place an order for a mated queen from Black Mountain Honey as he had seen their videos online and knew they were a reputable supplier of mated queen bees. Josh placed his order just before the 4pm deadline and the queen arrived at 8am the very next day – delivered by a slightly panicked Royal Mail delivery driver!
Josh Curquejo lives in the foothills of Scotland in East Lothian.
Josh then introduced the mated queen from Black Mountain Honey into the failing colony of bees. They accepted her straight away and she took over the hive immediately and they started to build back up in time for winter.
The simple introduction of a mated queen managed to save his colony of bees before they perished.
Josh has plans next year to buy more queens from Black Mountain Honey but he thinks that its more than just buying a simple queen.
You are buying assured quality and Laurence really loves and has a passion for what he does. I feel like that when I buy from Black Mountain Honey you are getting something that is supporting the beekeeping industry as a whole, rather than exploiting it.
