Year of the Red Queens
Did you know that 2023 is the year of the Red Queens?
Every year, beekeepers worldwide get their paint pens out to mark their newly-mated Queens. The year dictates the color we use. Since this year ends in a three, we paint our Queen’s thoraxes red! But why do this at all? Well, it makes it much easier to locate the Queen, who’s no doubt surrounded by thirty-five hundred other bees. Plus, it helps us keep track of a Queen’s age (year to year) and to recognize if the colony has replaced her between inspections. So there you go. There’s your quick and dirty beekeeping fact for the day!
News From My Apiary:
This last Winter was especially brutal in the apiary, but I got lucky. One of my hives survived the topsy-turvy weather we experienced here in Northern California. Occasionally, for beekeepers, Winter losses can average around 50%. For me, that means one hive lost is half my apiary! Legally, I’m only permitted to have two colonies in my backyard. Those odds can make Winter a real nail-biter!
So, how do you go about raising or rearing your own queens?
Well, there are several methods, but the one I use is the easiest, in my opinion. What I do is, interrupt pheromonal output and play with instinct! That might sound complicated, but it really isn’t. You just need a bit of luck and a good eye for spotting the right eggs. Oh! Speaking of pheromones—before I get too ahead of myself, I wrote a personal article regarding my experiences with pheromones for FrolicMe. If you want to read it, click here: https://www.frolicme.com/blog/sex-health-wellness/pheromones-what-are-they/.
Okay, back to the apiary.
When it’s time to replace an old or failing queen, I have to pull off a kind of magic trick. I open the hive and search every frame inside. What I’m looking for are the most recently laid eggs. These eggs must be of the right age—they can’t be more than one or two days old. Fresh-laid eggs can be difficult to spot—they’re teeny tiny, but once I’ve found them, I relocate that frame along with all the bees on it into another (empty) smaller hive box called a Nuc. The workers tending the brood on that frame are included in this transfer; I’ll explain why in a second. The last thing I do is select a couple more frames with a good supply of food resources on them—those must also go into the “temporary hive.”
By separating this frame of freshly laid, unhatched eggs and those nurturing workers from the original colony, I am creating a smaller colony and putting those bees into a ‘state of emergency.’ I’m forcing this new “colony” into believing that it is suddenly queenless—which (for now) it technically is. Within hours, the workers will recognize that there isn’t any more pheromonal output from their old Queen. So, they react. Survival instinct tells them their Queen is no longer viable and that they must replace her quickly. The workers will check out their current egg situation and convert a few of the soon-to-be worker larvae into Queen larvae.
But how is the larva of a worker bee converted into a Queen larva? Well, it’s a pretty extraordinary process, and if you use your imagination, you might find that it’s kinda sexy too. What I’m about to explain briefly is still considered theory, scientists haven’t definitively stated the cause, but it is the direction most are leaning toward. Without taking you too far down this bee biology rabbit hole—because there is a lot more to it, basically (in theory), it’s all about the quantity and quality of the food being fed to the newly hatched larva.
Enter royal jelly.
After an egg hatches, for the first three days, the larvae—workers and drones alike are fed what is called royal jelly. It’s a milky, protein-rich substance (shown in the photo above) that’s produced by the worker’s hypopharyngeal glands. Weaned after those three days, ‘bee bread’ is what’s for dinner next, and it’s given a little more sparingly than the royal jelly was. In contrast, any larvae destined for Queendom are still continuously fed that special royal jelly concoction. No bee bread for them!
And the queen larvae plump up fast. They grow faster than workers and drones. After only 16 days, a Queen larva will have pupated and emerged, fully grown. Worker bees take 21 days to mature. Drones take 24 days. But the workers know to prepare for this rapid growth process. They accommodate the bigger, faster-growing queen larvae by building larger cells to occupy. If you look at the photo above, you’ll see two vacant, peanut-shaped Queen cells. The smaller surrounding cells are for worker bee larvae. Notice the size difference?
So, worker bees can become Queen bees if continuously fed that special royal jelly throughout their larval stage. I could talk about bee biology for days, but I need to move on to other sexy things.
Side note: You can purchase already mated & marked queens, but it gets expensive. Also, I’ve found that “commercial” or “farmed” Queens aren’t always reliable. The Queens I’ve reared have all seemed to breed pretty well, if not better than the purchased bees. I think it’s because the Drone Congregation Areas near me have less virgin Queen activity and, thus, provide better opportunities for my virgins to hook up with plenty of robust drones and get inseminated by their more diverse, wilding genetics. See? Sexy, right? (Okay, maybe it’s just me, lol!)
The Eroticism:
Alright. So, now that you know how queens are made within the beehive, I have a question for you.
What makes you feel like a queen? Do you do anything special for yourself? Have that one grandiose fantasy that always curls your regal toes? Is there any specific clothing, a particular pair of shoes, or perhaps a certain food you eat that always gives you total Cleopatra vibes?
Me, you ask? Well, I tap into my ultimate Queenliness in several ways. If you haven’t read my blog post, Queen Me, you’re in for a treat. I discuss face-sitting and the origins of my kinky breeding fantasy. Here is the link: https://www.theamatorygarden.com/blog/queen-me
The other major way I feel my Queen vibes is while narrating erotic stories for my show, The Kiss Me Quick’s Erotica Podcast. It’s not while I’m writing but while narrating—there’s a considerable difference. Walking through my red studio door is akin to walking a red carpet towards coronation. That might read as a little haughty, and perhaps it is, but it’s the truth. You see, I do this little mental pep-talk before entering the studio. It’s a cheer I do for myself because I mean business—sexy business. I tell myself I give the best aural in all the Erotica podcast kingdoms.
When I’m in studio, behind my mic, and sitting on my ‘throne,’ if you will, I experience a rather majestic sensation. Because I’m breathing life into my characters—my babies, and my voice will carry their story all over the globe to my beautiful Lurid Listeners’ ears. That’s a powerful feeling. My goodness, I packed a lot of ‘my’s’ in there, didn’t I? Lol! Oh well.
I haven’t always felt this confident. Just listen back to my earliest narrations, lol! Initially, I recorded my erotic stories inside the family van. It was good fun and sweaty work—especially during the scorching summers, but I was still quite nervous then. It’s been my sweet husband’s unending encouragement, the devotion of our Lurid Listeners, and the passage of time that have all given me this regal gift of empowerment. I think it’s always been in there—this internal storytelling Queeness. After all, I’ve loved reading stories aloud all my life. I read to my siblings when we were kids. I was the wacky student who stood up in the middle of class when the teacher picked me to read aloud. I read to my kids constantly when they were younger. And, I’ve crafted my own stories for a long time—all from my dreams where their seeds first germinated. I just needed time to get comfortable with the erotic part of the process. I needed to ripen, one might say.
It’s the process of giving life to an erotic tale in this precise way that fulfills and empowers me, as though I’m communing with and providing for my Lurid Listeners. Perhaps I’m giving back what was missing in my life as a young adult. Through erotic storytelling, I’m feeding a mutual adult desire for eroticism. Over the years, it’s become a galvanizing exchange that turns me on, much like beekeeping.
If you want to know more about beekeeping or eroticism, please ask in the comments section below or via Twitter if that’s where you found my post. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll do my best to find someone who does.
2 Bees, 1 Artichoke
In my mind, most women are Queens. Remarkably designed to nurture and receive all the orgasms we can handle—and possibly more, lol! If you have a partner, reveling in your Queenliness is a two-way street. Everyone’s experience is different, but consider how you will return some of that energy to your lover. If you don’t know how, ask them for ideas. If neither of you can come up with anything, that’s okay. Explore your kinky Queenly realm together, whatever it looks like for you. Ask questions. And please don’t forget to listen. Perhaps you can start by crowning yourself; go ahead and purchase that sexy red lingerie you saw online the other day. It is the year of red queens, after all!
“Half for me, half for you.”
Rose Caraway
