Resource Hive: REBOOT
The Queen Hotel had a bit more excitement than I anticipated shortly after opening.
While moving the resource hive to its new stand, I spotted my new queen in the middle of a ball of bees. At first, I hoped the workers were simply surrounding and protecting her, but I quickly began to suspect they had less friendly intentions. I wasn't sure exactly how it happened, but I feared I may have accidentally dropped her from her nuc into the adjacent compartment that housed my older queen.
I gently brushed the bees away and attempted to cage her for safekeeping. She had other plans.
She flew.
A few moments later, she returned. We repeated the process a second time, and once again she escaped my rescue efforts. The last time I saw her, she had flown back into her own nuc. Whether she survived the ordeal remains to be seen.
Beekeeping has a way of teaching patience. Sometimes there is nothing left to do but close the hive, step away, and let the bees work things out.
As I replayed the events in my mind, I realized that I was likely the cause of the problem. In putting the resource hive together, I made a classic rookie mistake. I separated the bottom colony from the upper double nucs with a double-screen board, but I failed to account for the fact that the divider in the double nucs did not extend all the way to the screen. That small oversight left just enough bee space for the colonies to intermingle.
In a resource hive where multiple queens live in close quarters, "close enough" isn't close enough.
The more I thought about it, the more I was reminded of something my husband used to tell me. He was an I.T. guy, and whenever I had a technical issue—his first question was almost always the same:
"Did you reboot it?"
Over the years, he taught me that this advice applied to much more than just computers.
When something isn't working, sometimes you need to stop, take a breath, and start over. Sometimes you need to rethink the plan, make adjustments, and try again. Not every project goes smoothly. Not every decision turns out the way we hoped. Whether it's a computer, a beehive, or life itself, we often learn the most through the mistakes we make along the way.
My resource hive may not have had the perfect grand opening. I learned that moving a hive full of queens requires a little more planning, a little more caution, and definitely a little more protective gear. More importantly, I learned that mistakes are not failures if we are willing to learn from them.
The truth is that none of us become better beekeepers, gardeners, parents, leaders, or Christians without making mistakes. We live, we learn, and with God's help, we try again.
There is comfort in knowing that God does not expect perfection from us. He expects faithfulness. He teaches us through both our successes and our setbacks. Every mistake becomes an opportunity to gain wisdom for the next time.
For now, I have relocated the colony containing the older queen and added a frame of fresh eggs to the hive that may have lost its queen. If my adventurous young queen somehow survived, I'll celebrate. If she didn't, I'll learn from the experience and move forward a little wiser than before.
After all, sometimes the best thing you can do is reboot, start again, and trust God with the outcome.