Meet Our Hive: Queen Lilibet

As part of our blog, we are going to be introducing each of our beehives and keeping track of how they are doing over the rest of the summer. Keep checking back to see how our hives are doing. We also love to hear your feedback and questions.
To start it off, we'd like to introduce to you, her buzzy majesty, Queen Lilibet. Queen Lilibet is named in honour of Queen Elizabeth II, whose childhood nickname was 'Lilibet'. This  hive was established this summer in our specially built top-bar beehive. Our good friend, Adam, carpenter-extraordinaire, and Jerremie used plans from the internet to build a hive that would have all the benefits of a top-bar structure, but would have the capacity of a large Langstroth beehive. So far, the hive produces big beautiful pieces of comb, but is very fragile because each comb is so heavy. We have to make sure we do not disturb the hive in warm weather.
Queen Lilibet is in University Heights. There are lots of wildflowers in the area, especially in the field beside the Children's Hospital. There are also lots of flowering trees and bushes, such as apple, May Day, Lilac, and Honeysuckle. The gardens in this neighbourhood are lovely, which guarantees a nice varied diet for the bees.

Queen  Lilibet and her ladies came from Alberta Honey Producers. She is a New Zealand bee.  So far, Queen Lilibet seems to be doing well. There has been a lot of activity around the hive, especially on sunny days.