June 12 -- All's Queen Right in the Bee Yard!

Blue hyssop is a great plan for attracting pollinators of all sorts.

Hot and sunny today, already in the upper 80s at 11:00 a.m. and calm -- a great day for busy, working bees.We only inspected the middle box.

Halleluia! And thanks to St. Ambrose and St. Valentine for their intercession. We had to go down to the bottom of the five boxes, but there she was -- a nice fat queen and brood. So she is mated and laying and all's right with her world. The bees were very calm and are working hard to draw the new foundation we put in the hive last week. Lots of honey in the top two boxes as well.

So it is time to name the new hive. We will call that pretty gal Queen Rachel Lauren. And may she be a great producer for her colony.

We took the entrance reducers out of all three hives so the bees have more room for going in and out. In hot weather they sometimes congregate at the door and fan the hive to cool it off so this will make their efforts more productive.

This afternoon we will add a working box to Queen Bianca's hive since they were so busy last week. We don't plan to inspect first. We presume all is right there and will wait until next week to inspect.

Last week we planted some bee attracting plants in our circle garden: a blue licorice hyssop and two blue mints (can't remember the variety). So far they seem to be attracting bumble bees as is the lavendar. The honeybees must be finding something they like better nearby. But we will continue to plant bee friendly flora to offer honey and nectar. The three plants we put in the circle garden bloom from now until the frost and are perennials. I hope they do well so we can spread them next year to other parts of the yard.

I plan to take a big jar of our honey to the Poor Clares in Alexandria in thanksgiving for their prayers. It is such a relief to finally be queen right in the bee yard!