Macbeeeeeth (Get it?)

And this is how I know I am a true vegetarian...

When I woke Friday, I wasn't in a good mood. I had a task to accomplish. And that task? The regicide of Queen Stella. I felt like Macbeth going after King Duncan. No Lady Macbeth gall filled my veins, I can tell you.

'Can't I just put her in a matchbox, run away into the woods with her, then release her like the huntsman did with Snow White?' was one of the irrational thoughts that flicked through my mind.
'Oh, shut up, you big girl's blouse,' said my other mind. 'Just get on with it. You've been killing wasps all week and never given it a second thought.'
'That's not the point,' my first mind rejoindered (that's a good word for a Sunday morning, isn't it?). 'The point is that we want bees. They, unlike aggressive and carnivorous wasps, are gentle vegetarians who work very hard. Bees are intelligent creatures, and Queen Stella can't help being a shy, can't-go-out-in-the-rain-to-mate girl. That it seems a bit cruel, that's all. A bit 'interfering with nature.'
'Just squish her,' said my second mind.

The post man knocked shortly after mid-day.
'Couple of big envelopes for you,' he said, handing them over. 'Er, this one says 'Live Bees,' all over it.'
'Yes,' I said. 'Because it's got live bees in it.'
The post man didn't move. He gave me a quizzical look, which meant he wanted further explanation, but without having to ask the obviously stupid question, 'Why are you having live bees sent through the post to you?'

'I'm having to put a new queen in my hive,' I said, thinking, how can I keep this simple so I don't go into the whole history of bee keeping. 'Because the current queen is producing boy bees only and if I don't change her to a queen that produces girls as well, the whole colony will die out.' I wanted to add, 'But no-one said all this would happen in our first season....aaarghhhhhhh!!!!!!! but I didn't because the post man was already edging away.

'So there's a queen bee in that envelope?' he said.
'In a cage, yes. With half a dozen extra bees to look after her.'
'Right. Well....er...fascinating,' said the post man, and went on his way.

I opened the envelope, which was a bog standard envelope with holes punched in it for air. If ever I come to the point where I have to post a bee, I thought (which will probably be never), I shall use a little box, not an envelope. Anyway, inside the envelope were about 8 angry bees in a cage, flailing to get out. Oh dear. I didn't like this. This was like battery bee farming.

'Shut up,' said my second mind. 'Get on with it.'

I thought, I'll phone the suppplier. I need some reassurance about what to do next, because, having read 6 books about re-queening, they offered six different ideas about how to do it.

So I phoned. I spoke to a bonkers old geezer. I told him how I was planning to do it. 'I wouldn't do it like that,' he said, and then proceeded to tell me exactly how he would do it, finishing with the words, 'but don't phone me back later complaining that she's dead.'

Well, that instilled mucho confidence in me, didn't it? Still, livestock is livestock, and as Olly says, they don't read the books.

My next problem was that I needed another pair of hands. I phoned my Mum.
'How do you fancy helping me with a spot of emergency bee-keeping?' I said.
'Oooh, yes!' she said. 'What else are Mums for?'

Actually, I could think of many things mums are probably for that would come higher on the list of priorities than emergency bee-keeping, but that's my Mum for you - she'll have a go at most things.

Meanwhile, I put the new queen on the throne - the loo cistern in the downstairs bathroom, because as a room it is cool and quiet and away from the noise of the house which was, by this time, being added to greatly by the presence of grand-daughter Kayleigh who was in a noisy, high-pitched 'let's sing to the cats' mode.

Mum arrived. I togged her up in my bee-suit; she is smaller than me, my bee suit is much bigger than me ergo Mum looked like some alien baby in a too-big skin. She wrapped the eighteen inches of extra leg length under the bottom of her feet, negating the need to wear wellies. I put on Andy's suit - ditto the same problem, but at least we were safe from stings.

'Two things before we get started,' I said. 'One, don't make any sudden movements and two, don't take off your bee suit until I say you are bee free.'
'Right,' said Mum, who was clearly very excited about the whole experience of being an honorary bee keeping assistant.

My second biggest fear was that I wouldn't be able to find Queen Stella.
'They're out to get you, my lady,' said the bees. 'Hide, quickly, behind this arrass.'

But there she was, in her usual place on frame 5. I thrust the frame at Mum. 'Hold this,' I said, 'whilst I catch her.'
'If you don't want to kill her, I'll do it,' offered Mum, having sighed heavily at my killing angst. 'You know what a hard-hearted cow I am.'
'Ah, so that's where I get it from,' I said.

As it was, Queen Stella obligingly and heart-breakingly walked onto my hand, as though she was accepting her fate with regal grace. I shut my eyes, said a prayer, and squeezed...

Two Malarkey bees were already trying to chew the new Queen out of her cage. I tried not to cry as one Malarkey bee sat by the body of Queen Stella and tried to nudge her back to life. It was all systems go. Mum was offering helpful comments like, 'Why don't you put that frame there, the cage there, that one there, move this over there and shall I put this one back yet or what?' And all this from someone who's never done a spot of beekeeping in her life! Must be some inherent instinct she'd got.

I had a panic moment when I thought I ought to check the rest of the frames for queen cells, and then my second mind said, 'Durr, idiot, she's been laying sterile drone eggs, there won't be a fertile queen cell which is why we're having to go through this malarkey and if there is one, it will hatch a drone queen which is a whole different kettle of transsexual fish,' so I stopped panicking, carefully balanced the queen cage between frames 5 and 6, and reassembled the hive. The queen cage promptly dropped into the middle of the hive, but I thought, well, that's it, I can't muck them about any more, I'll leave them to it.

And then I carried Queen Stella's body into the kitchen and put it into a cupboard so the cats wouldn't eat her before I had a chance to show her to Andy and check that I had actually got the right bee. I knew I had; I'm getting pretty good at spotting queens, but you know, reassurance etc etc blah blah blah.

The new Queen is called Queen Philibert. Because Friday was Saint Philibert's Day, who gave his name to the filbert, or Kent cob-nut, and nuts seemed somehow appropriate. I hope to God she does her job properly/ doesn't die/ clear off like that Australian bird did back in June. I don't think I could go through all that again.