This week we're celebrating Mother's Day, queen bee style!

What does that mean? Here at the Hive, we have 30 queen bee mothers to celebrate, as each of our colonies has a single queen bee. She alone is responsible for laying the eggs (up to 1,500 a day!) and keeping the colony running smoothly. Her thousands of daughters do all the work to care for the young bees, keep the hive clean, feed everyone, and protect the Hive.
Each spring, healthy colonies want to split into two, with a swarm of half of the workers and the original queen leaving behind a perfectly good home stocked with a full pantry. Selfless, right!?! While this is a natural process undertaken by all healthy beehives, losing half of your bees sucks. So we came up with a compromise.
As soon as the colony shows us they want to split, we split them! This “assisted swarm” is one way we keep the bees happy and healthy. Some of the splits get to raise their own queens, while others we choose to introduce new queens. This process is the best of both worlds – we keep the genetics of healthy queens who survived winter, while also bringing in new genetics to keep the gene pool diverse.
While worker bees don't bring their mother flowers, they do bring her nectar and pollen. So when you give your Mom a four-pack of our delicious brew, know that the bees approve.
Top that? Okay, we’ll do it. Gift your human queen Mother the best gift of all: quality time with you over a glass of a functional beverage. We're raising a glass and wishing a happy Mother's Day to ALL the moms out there, whether their kids have 2 legs, 4 legs, or 6 legs and wings!
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