16 June 2025

Bee Factory Update

I thought you might be interested in an update on the bee factory we bought from you and set up last year :-

From the 30 cocoons we received with the “factory” we got a reasonable number of “filled” cardboard tubes. After collecting the tubes, storing them and finally breaking them open (very carefully + cleaning them) we had about 120 new cocoons. These were kept cool through winter and then in the fridge from around the beginning of February. I changed the design of the factory to add 3 more hatching trays and we put all the cocoons out in mid March. The weather was very warm and the first male bees appeared after a few days. We were very, very pleased to see them. Over the next few weeks there was a lot of activity around the hatching trays in what I believe was probably the males trying to be first to the females when they hatched. I am very pleased to say that we have at least half a dozen females that are using the cardboard tubes now. Two tubes are already “full”.

When the first bees emerged a few days after “installing” them we were very relieved and obviously very pleased. At that time we hadn’t done enough research on the bee hatching to realise that the large number of bees that were buzzing around the hatching trays, and re-entering them (which was a worry at the time) were the males awaiting the females to hatch. It appears that female bees like to keep the males waiting too and it was quite a long time before females appeared, “met” a male, and started to enter the tubes. We will obviously know better next year but it will still be a “nervy” time. However, if we do get more cocoons than this year then I’m going to have to sort out some more hatching trays as the four I now have won’t be enough!

2nd update – I thought a brief update on my earlier (Tuesday) message re this year’s bees. This photo below shows a considerable increase in the filled tubes since that email.  I guess there are now over 60 and there is still a great deal of activity in the “factory”.

I have now removed the three hatching trays and established that all but two cocoons actually hatched.  We are very pleasantly amazed at this! You said in your reply to me that maybe we will reach 500 cocoons this year…I believe we have exceeded that number already (assuming the same average of cocoons per tube as last year, ie. 7).

Best regards, Bob

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